HISTORY 


OF 


THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE 


BY 


JOHN  EICHAED  GREEN,  M.A. 


VOLUME  I. 


KARLY  ENGLAND    449-1071  THE  CHARTER    1204-1291 

ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS    1071-1214  THE  PARLIAMENT    1307-1461 


WITH  EIGHT  MAPS 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN     SQUARE 


1913 


f|ris 

TO  TWO   DEAR  FRIENDS, 
MY  MASTERS   IN  THE   STUDY   OF   ENGLISH   HISTORY, 

EDWARD   AUGUSTUS   FREEMAN, 

AND 

WILLIAM   STUBBS. 


o 

«* 


CONTENTS. 

BOOK  I. 
EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE   ENGLISH   CONQUEST   OF   BRITAIN.      449—577 


CHAPTER  II. 

OQ 

THE  ENGLISH    KINGDOMS.      577  —  796        ....-••••• 

CHAPTER  III. 

WESSEX  AND   THE  NORTHMEN.      796—947    ........         70 


CHAPTER  IV. 
FEUDALISM  AND  THE  MONARCHY.    954  —  1071    ......      87 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  II. 
ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE  CONQUEROR.   1071 — 1085 123 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  NORMAN   KINGS.      1085—1154 135 

CHAPTER  III. 

HENRY  THE   SECOND.      1154—1189 161 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ANGEVIN   KINGS.      1189 — 1204    .  183 


BOOK  III. 

THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 

CHAPTER  I. 
JOHN,     1214—1216 195 

CHAPTER  II. 

HENRY   THE   TH1ED.      1216—1232  ....  250 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PACK 

THE  BARONS'  WAR.     1232—1272  ...          , 271 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOWARD   THE   FIRST.       1272 — 1307 313 

BOOK  IV. 

THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 
CHAPTER  L 

KDWARD   THE  SECOND.       1307 — 1327 „      .     370 

CHAPTER  II. 

EDWARD    TIIK   THIRD.       1327—1347 393 

CHAPTER  III 

THE   PEASANT   REVOLT,       1347 — 1381 „      ,      426 

CHAPTER  IV. 

RICHARD   THE   SECOND.      1381 — 1400        .      .      , 486 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE    HOUSE  OF   LANCASTER.      1399 — 1422 521 

CHAPTER  VL 

THE    WARS   OF   THE   ROSES.      1422 — 1461  ,      546 


LIST    OF    MAPS. 

NO.  PAGE 

1.  BRITAIN  AND  THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 24 

2.  THE  ENGLISH  KINGDOMS  IN  A.D.  600 32 

3.  ENGLAND  AND  THE  DANELAGH 73 

4.  THE  DOMINIONS  OF  THE  ANGEVINS •     •     •  160 

5.  IRELAND  JUST  BEFORE  THE  ENGLISH  INVASION     ....  176 

6.  SCOTLAND  IN  1290     , 345 

7.  FRANCE  AT  THE  TREATY  OP  BRETIGNY    .......  440 

8.  THE  WARS  OF  THE  ROSES 574 


BOOK   I. 

EARLY   ENGLAND. 

449—1071. 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  BOOK  I. 
(449—1071.) 

For  the  conquest  of  Britain  by  the  English  our  authorities  are 
scant  and  imperfect.  The  only  extant  British  account  is  the  "  Epis- 
tola  "  of  Gildas,  a  work  written  probably  about  A.B.  560.  The  style  of 
Gildas  is  diffuse  and  inflated,  but  his  book  is  of  great  value  in  the  light 
it  throws  on  the  state  of  the  island  at  that  time,  and  as  giving  at  its 
close  what  is  probably  the  native  story  of  the  conquest  of  Kent.  This 
is  the  only  part  of  the  struggle  of  which  we  have  any  record  from 
the  side  of  the  conquered.  The  English  conquerors,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  left  jottings  of  their  conquest  of  Kent,  Sussex,  and  Wessex 
in  the  curious  annals  which  form  the  opening  of  the  compilation  now 
known  as  the  "  English  "  or  "Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,"  annals  which  are 
undoubtedly  historic,  though  with  a  slight  mythical  intermixture. 
For  the  history  of  the  English  conquest  of  mid-Britain  or  the  Eastern 
Coast  we  possess  no  written  materials  from  either  side  ;  and  a  frag- 
ment of  the  Annals  of  Northumbria  embodied  in  the  later  compil- 
ation ( "  Historia  Britonum  "  )  which  bears  the  name  of  Nennius  alone 
throws  light  on  the  conquest  of  the  North. 

From  these  inadequate  materials  however  Dr.  Guest  has  succeeded 
by  a  wonderful  combination  of  historical  and  archaeological  knowledge 
in  constructing  a  narrative  of  the  conquest  of  Southern  and  South- 
western Britain  which  must  serve  as  the  starting-point  for  all  future 
enquirers.  This  narrative,  so  far  as  it  goes,  has  served  as  the  basis  of 
the  account  given  in  my  text  ;  and  I  can  only  trust  that  it  may  eoon 
be  embodied  in  some  more  accessible  form  than  that  of  a  series  of 
papers  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Archaeological  Institute.  In  a  like 
way,  though  Kemble's  "  Saxons  in  England  "  and  Sir  F.  Palgrave's 
"  History  of  the  English  Commonwealth  "  (if  read  with  caution)  contain 
much  that  is  worth  notice,  our  knowledge  of  the  primitive  constitution 
of  the  English  people  and  the  changes  introduced  into  it  since  their 
settlement  in  Britain  must  be  mainly  drawn  from  the  "Constitutional 
History"  of  Professor  Stubbs.  In  my  earlier  book  I  had  not  the  ad- 
vantage of  aid  from  this  invaluable  work,  which  was  then  unpublished ; 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


in  the  present  I  do  little  more  than  follow  it  in  all  constitutional 
questions  as  far  as  it  has  at  present  gone. 

Bseda's  "  Historia  Ecclesiastica  Gentis  Anglorum,"  a  work  of  which 
I  have  spoken  in  my  text,  is  the  primary  authority  for  the  history  oi 
the  Northumbrian  overlordship  which  followed  the  Conquest.  It  is 
by  copious  insertions  from  B;eda  that  the  meagre  regnal  and  episcopal 
annals  of  the  West  Saxons  have  been  brought  to  the  shape  in  which  they 
at  present  appear  in  the  part  of  the  English  Chronicle  which  concerns 
this  period.  The  life  of  Wilfrid  by  Eddi,  with  those  of  Cuthbert  by  an 
anonymous  contemporary  and  by  Bseda  himself,  throw  great  light  on 
the  religious  and  intellectual  condition  of  the  North  at  the  time  of  its 
supremacy.  But  with  the  fall  of  Northumbria  we  pass  into  a  period 
of  historical  dearth.  A  few  incidents  of  Mercian  history  are  preserved 
among  the  meagre  annals  of  Wessex  in  the  English  Chronicle  :  but 
for  the  most  part  we  are  thrown  upon  later  writers,  especially  Henry 
of  Huntingdon  and  William  of  Malmesbury,  who,  though  authors  of 
the  twelfth  century,  had  access  to  older  materials  which  are  now  lost. 
A  little  may  be  gleaned  from  biographies  such  as  that  of  Guthlac  of 
Crowland  ;  but  the  letters  of  Boniface  and  Alcwine,  which  have  been 
edited  by  Jaffe  in  his  series  of  "  Monumenta  Germanica,"  form  the  most 
valuable  contemporary  materials  for  this  period. 

From  the  rise  of  Wessex  our  history  rests  mainly  on  the  English 
Chronicle.  The  earlier  part  of  this  work,  as  we  have  said,  is  a  com- 
pilation, and  consists  of  (1)  Annals  of  the  Conquest  of  South 
Britain,  and  (2)  Short  Notices  of  the  Kings  and  Bishops  of  Wessex 
expanded  by  copious  insertions  from  Ba?da,  and  after  the  end  of  his 
work  by  brief  additions  from  some  northern  sources.  These  materials 
may  have  been  thrown  together  into  their  present  form  in  Alfred's 
time  as  a  preface  to  the  far  fuller  annals  which  begin  with  the  reign 
of  .ZEthelwulf,  and  which  widen  into  a  great  contemporary  history 
when  they  reach  that  of  Alfred  himself!  After  jElfred's  day  the 
Chronicle  varies  much  in  value.  Through  the  reign  of  Eadward  the 
Elder  it  is  copious,  and  a  Mercian  Chronicle  is  imbedded  in  it :  it 
then  dies  down  into  a  series  of  scant  and  jejune  entries,  broken  how- 
ever with  grand  battle-songs,  till  the  reign  of  .^Ethelred  when  its 
fulness  returns. 

Outside  the  Chronicle  we  encounter  a  great  and  valuable  mass 
of  historical  material  for  the  age  of  Alfred  and  his  successors 
The  life  of  ^Elfred  which  bears  the  name  of  Asser,  puzzling  as  it 
is  in  some  ways,  is  probably  really  Asser's  work,  and  certainly 
of  contemporary  authority.  The  Latin  rendering  of  the  English 
Chronicle  which  bears  the  name  of  ^Ethelweard  adds  a  little  to 
our  knowledge  of  this  time.  The  Laws,  which  form  the  base  of 
our  constitutional  knowledge  of  this  period,  fall,  as  has  been 
well  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Freeman,  into  two  classes.  Those  of 
Eadward,  -^Ethelstan,  Eadmund,  and  Eadgar,  are  like  the  earlier  laws 
of  jEthelberht  and  Ine,  "  mainly  of  the  nature  of  amendments  of 
custom."  Those  of  Alfred,  yEthelred,  Cnut,  with  those  which  bear 
the  name  of  Eadward  the  Confessor,  "  aspire  to  the  character  of 
Codes."  They  are  printed  in  Mr.  Thorpe's  "  Ancient  Laws  and  In- 
stitutes of  England,"  but  the  extracts  given  by  Professor  Stubbs 
in  his  "Select  Charters"  contain  all  that  directly  bears  on  our 


AUTHORITIES. 


constitutional  growth.  A  vast  mass  of  Charters  and  other  documents 
belonging  to  this  period  has  been  collected  by  Kemble  in  his  "  Codex 
Diplomaticus  JEvi  Saxonici,"  and  some  are  added  by  Mr.  Thorpe  in 
his  "  Diplomatarium  Anglo-Saxonicum."  Dunstan's  biographies  have 
been  collected  and  edited  by  Professor  Stubbs  in  the  series  published 
by  the  Master  of  the  Eolls. 

In  the  period  which  follows  the  accession  of  ^Ethelred  we  are  still 
aided  by  these  collections  of  royal  Laws  and  Charters,  and  the 
English  Chronicle  becomes  of  great  importance.  Its  various  copies 
indeed  diiier  so  much  in  tone  and  information  from  one  another  that 
they  may  to  some  extent  be  looked  upon  as  di&tinct  works,  and  "  Flo- 
rence of  Worcester"  is  probably  the  translation  of  a  valuable  copy  of 
the  "  Chronicle  "  which  has  disappeared.  The  translation  however 
was  made  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  it  is  coloured  by  the  revival  of 
national  feeling  which  was  characteristic  of  the  time.  Of  Eadward  the 
Confessor  himself  we  have  a  contemporary  biography  (edited  by  Mr. 
Luard  for  the  Master  of  the  Rolls)  which  throws  great  light  on 
the  personal  history  of  the  King  and  oa  his  relations  to  the  house  of 
Godwine. 

The  earlier  Norman  traditions  are  preserved  by  Dudo  of  St.  Quentin, 
u  verbose  and  confused  writer,  whose  work  was  abridged  and  con- 
tinued by  William  of  Jumieges,  a  contemporary  of  the  Conqueror. 
William's  work  in  turn  served  as  the  basis  of  the  "  Roman  de  Rou  " 
composed  by  Wace  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second.  The  primary 
authority  for  the  Conqueror  himself  is  the  "  Gesta  Williemi "  of  his 
chaplain  and  violent  partizan,  William  of  Poitiers.  For  the  period  of 
the  invasion,  in  which  the  English  authorities  are  meagre,  we  have 
besides  these  the  contemporary  "  Carmen  de  Bello  Hastingeusi,"  by 
Guy,  Bishop  of  Amiens,  and  the  pictures  in  the  Bayeux  Tapestry. 
Orderic,  a  writer  of  the  twelfth  century,  gossipy  and  confused  but 
honest  and  well-informed,  tells  us  much  of  the  religious  movement  in 
Normandy,  and  is  particularly  valuable  and  detailed  in  his  account  of 
the  period  after  the  battle  of  Senlac.  Among  secondary  authorities 
for  the  Norman  Conquest,  Simeon  of  Durham  is  useful  for  northern 
matters,  and  William  of  Malmesbury  worthy  of  note  for  his  remark- 
able combination  of  Norman  and  English  feeling.  Domesday  Book 
is  of  course  invaluable  for  the  Norman  settlement.  The  chief  docu- 
ments for  the  early  history  of  Anjou  have  been  collected  in  the 
"  Chroniques  d' Anjou  "  published  by  the  Historical  Society  of  France. 
Those  which  are  authentic  are  little  more  than  a  few  scant  annals  of 
religious  houses  ;  but  li'^ht  is  thrown  on  them  by  the  contemporary 
French  chronicles.  The  "  Gesta  Comitum  "  is  nothing  but  a  compila- 
tion of  the  twelfth  century,  in  which  a  mass  of  Angevin  romance  as 
to  the  early  story  of  the  Counts  is  dressed  into  historical  shape  by 
copious  quotations  from  these  French  historians. 

It  is  possible  that  fresh  light  may  be  thrown  on  our  earlier  history 
when  historical  criticism  has  done  more  than  has  yet  been  done  for 
the  materials  given  us  by  Ireland  and  Wales.  For  Welsh  history  the 
"  Brut-y-Tywysogion  "  and  the  "  Annales  Cambrite  "  are  now  acces- 
sible in  the  series  published  by  the  Master  of  the  Rolls ;  the  "Chronicle 
of  Caradoo  of  Lancarvan"  is  translated  bv  Powel  ;  the  Mabinogion, 
or  Romantic  Tales  have  been  published  by  Lady  Charlotte  Guest ; 

YOL.  L— 2 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


and  the  "Welsh  Laws  collected  by  the  Record  Commission.  The  im- 
portance of  these,  as  embodying  a  customary  code  of  very  early  date, 
will  probably  be  better  appreciated  when  we  possess  the  whole  of  the 
Brehon  Laws,  the  customary  laws  of  Ireland,  which  are  now  being 
issued  by  the  Irish  Laws  Commission,  and  to  which  attention  has 
justly  been  drawn  by  Sir  Henry  Maine  ("  Early  History  of  Institu- 
tions ")  as  preserving  Aryan  usages  of  the  remotest  antiquity. 

The  enormous  mass  of  materials  which  exists  for  the  early  history 
of  Ireland,  various  as  they  are  in  critical  value,  may  be  seen  in  Mr. 
O'Curry's  "  Lectures  on  the  Materials  of  Ancient  Irish  History  ; "  and 
they  may  be  conveniently  studied  by  the  general  reader  in  the  "Annals 
of  the  Four  Masters,"  edited  by  Dr.  O'Donovan.  But  this  is  a  mere  com- 
pilation (though  generally  a  faithful  one)  made  about  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century  from  earlier  sources,  two  of  which  have  been  pub- 
lished in  the  Rolls  series.  One,  the  "  Wars  of  the  Gaedhil  with  the 
Gaill,"  is  an  account  of  the  Danish  wars  which  may  have  been  written 
in  the  eleventh  century  ;  the  other,  the  "  Annals  of  Loch  Ce,"  is  a 
chronicle  of  Irish  affairs  from  the  end  of  the  Danish  wars  to  1590. 
The  "Chronicon  Scotorum"  (in  the  same  series)  extends  to  the  year 
1150,  and  though  composed  in  the  seventeenth  century  is  valuable 
from  the  learning  of  its  author,  Duald  Mac-Firbis.  The  works  of 
Colgan  are  to  Irish  church  affairs  what  the  "Annals  of  the  Four  Mas- 
ters "  are  to  Irish  civil  history.  They  contain  a  vast  collection  of 
translations  and  transcriptions  of  early  saints'  lives,  from  those  of 
Patrick  downwards.  Adanman's  "  Life  of  Columba  "  (admirably  edited 
by  Dr.  Reeves)  supplies  some  details  to  the  story  of  the  Northumbrian 
kingdom.  Among  more  miscellaneous  works  we  find  the  "  Book  of 
Rights,"  a  summary  of  the  dues  and  rights  of  the  several  over-kings 
and  under-kings,  of  much  earlier  date  probably  than  the  Norman  in- 
vasion ;  and  Cormac's  "  Glossary,"  attributed  to  the  tenth  century  and 
certainly  an  early  work,  from  which  much  may  be  gleaned  of  legal 
and  social  details,  and  something  of  the  pagan  religion  of  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST  OF  BRITAIN. 
449—577. 

FOR  the  fatherland  of  the  English  race  we  must  look  far  Old 
away  from  England  itself.  In  the  fifth  century  after  the  England. 
birth  of  Christ  the  one  country  which  we  know  to  have 
borne  the  name  of  Angeln  or  England  lay  within  the 
district  which  is  now  called  Sleswick,  a  district  in  the 
heart  of  the  peninsula  that  parts  the  Baltic  from  the 
northern  seas.  Its  pleasant  pastures,  its  black-timbered 
homesteads,  its  prim  little  townships  looking  down  on 
inlets  of  purple  water,  were  then  but  a  wild  waste  of 
heather  and  sand,  girt  along  the  coast  with  a  sunless  wood- 
land broken  here  and  there  by  meadows  that  crept 
down  to  the  marshes  and  the  sea.  The  dwellers  in  this 
district  however  seem  to  have  been  merely  an  outlying 
fragment  of  what  was  called  the  Engle  or  English  folk,  the 
bulk  of  whom  lay  probably  in  what  is  now  Lower  Hanover 
and  Oldenburg.  On  one  side  of  them  the  Saxons  of 
Westphalia  held  the  land  from  the  Weser  to  the  Rhine ; 
on  the  other  the  Eastphalian  Saxons  stretched  away  to  the 
Elbe.  North  again  of  the  fragment  of  the  English  folk  in 
Sleswick  lay  another  kindred  tribe;  the  Jutes,  whose  name 
is  still  preserved  in  their  district  of  Jutland.  Engle, 
Saxon,  and  Jute  all  belonged  to  the  same  Low-German 
branch  of  the  Teutonic  family ;  and  at  the  moment  when 
.  history  discovers  them  they  were  being  drawn  together  by 
the  ties  of  a  common  blood,  common  speech,  common 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


The 

English 
Village. 


social  and  political  institutions.  There  is  little  ground 
indeed  for  believing  that  the  three  tribes  looked  on  them- 
selves as  one  people,  or  that  we  can  as  yet  apply  to  them, 
save  by  anticipation,  the  common  name  of  Englishmen. 
But  each  of  them  was  destined  to  share  in  the  conquest 
of  the  land  in  which  we  live  ;  and  it  is  from  the  union  of 
all  of  them  when  its  conquest  was  complete  that  the 
English  people  has  sprung. 

Of  the  temper  and  life  of  the  folk  in  this  older  England 
we  know  little.  But  from  the  glimpses  that  we  catch  of  it 
when  conquest  had  brought  them  to  the  shores  of  Britain 
their  political  and  social  organization  must  have  been  that  of 
the  German  race  to  which  they  belonged.  In  their  villages 
lay  ready  formed  the  social  and  political  life  which  is  round 
us  in  the  England  of  to-day.  A  belt  of  forest  or  waste  parted 
each  from  its  fellow  villages,  and  within  this  boundary  or 
mark  the  "  township,"  as  the  village  was  then  called  from 
the  "  tun "  or  rough  fence  and  trench  that  served  as  its 
simple  fortification,  formed  a  complete  and  independent 
body,  though  linked  by  ties  which  were  strengthening 
every  day  to  the  townships  about  it  and  the  tribe  of  which 
it  formed  a  part.  Its  social  centre  was  the  homestead 
where  the  setheling  or  eorl,  a  descendant  of  the  first 
English  settlers  in  the  waste,  still  handed  down  the  blood 
and  traditions  of  his  fathers.  Around  this  homestead  or 
aethel,  each  in  its  little  croft,  stood  the  lowlier  dwellings  of 
freelings  or  ceorls,  men  sprung,  it  may  be,  from  descendants 
of  the  earliest  settler  who  had  in  various  ways  forfeited 
their  claim  to  a  share  in  the  original  homestead,  or  more 
probably  from  incomers  into  the  village  who  had  since 
settled  round 'it  and  been  admitted  to  a  share  in  the  land 
and  freedom  of  the  community.  The  eorl  was  distinguished 
from  his  fellow  villagers  by  ^his  wealth  and  his  nobler 
blood  ;  he  was  held  by  them  in  an  hereditary  reverence  ; 
and  it  was  from  him  and  his  fellow  ffithelings  that  host- 
leaders,  whether  of  the  village  or  the  tribe,  were  chosen  in 
times  of  war.  But  this  claim  to  precedence  rested  simply 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


Justice. 


on  the  free  recognition  of  his  fellow  villagers.  Within  the  CHAP.  I 
township  every  freeman  or  ceorl  was  equal.  It  was  the 
freeman  who  was  the  base  of  village  society.  He  was  the 
"  free-necked  man "  whose  long  hair  floated  over  a  neck 
which  had  never  bowed  to  a  lord.  He  was  the  "  weaponed 
man  "  who  alone  bore  spear  and  sword,  and  who  alone 
preserved  that  right  of  self-redress  or  private  war  which 
in  such  a  state  of  society  formed  the  main  check  upon 
lawless  outrage. 

Among  the  English,  as  among  all  the  races  of  mankind, 
justice  had  originally  sprung  from  each  man's  personal 
action.  There  had  been  a  time  when  every  freeman  was  his 
own  avenger.  But  even  in  the  earliest  forms  of  English 
society  of  which  we  find  traces  this  right  of  self-defence 
was  being  modified  and  restricted  by  a  growing  sense  of 
public  justice.  The  "  blood- wite "  or  compensation  in 
money  for  personal  wrong  was  the  first  effort  of  the  tribe 
as  a  whole  to  regulate  private  revenge.  The  freeman's  life 
and  the  freeman's  limb  had  each  on  this  system  its  legal 
price.  "  Eye  for  eye,"  ran  the  rough  code,  and  "  life  for 
life,"  or  for  each  fair  damages.  We  see  a  further  step 
towards  the  modern  recognition  of  a  wrong  as  done  not  to 
the  individual  man  but  to  the  people  at  large  in  another 
custom  of  early  date.  The  price  of  life  or  limb  was  paid, 
not  by  the  wrong-doer  to  the  man  he  wronged,  but  by  the 
family  or  house  of  the  wrong-doer  to  the  family  or  house  of 
the  wronged.  Order  and  law  were  thus  made  to  rest  in 
each  little  group  of  people  upon  the  blood-bond  which 
knit  its  families  together ;  every  outrage  was  held  to  have 
been  done  by  all  who  were  linked  in  blood  to  the  doer  of 
it,  every  crime  to  have  been  done  against  all  who  were 
linked  in  blood  to  the  sufferer  from  it.  From  this  sense  of 
the  value  of  the  family  bond  as  a  means  of  restraining  the 
wrong-doer  by  forces  which  the  tribe  as  a  whole  did  not 
as  yet  possess  sprang  the  first  rude  forms  of  English  justice. 
Each  kinsman  was  his  kinsman's  keeper,  bound  to  protect 
Mm  from  wrong,  to  hinder  him  from  wrong-doing,  and  to 


10 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


The 
Land. 


suffer  with  him  and  pay  for  him  if  wrong  were  done.  So 
fully  was  this  principle  recognized  that  even  if  any  man 
was  charged  before  his  fellow-tribesmen  with  crime,his 
kinsfolk  still  remained  in  fact  his  sole  judges;  for  it  was 
by  their  solemn  oath  of  his  innocence  or  his  guilt  that  he 
had  to  stand  or  fall. 

As  the  blood- bond  gave  its  first  form  to  English  justice, 
so  it  gave  their  first  forms  to  English  society  and  English 
warfare.  Kinsmen  fought  side  by  side  in  the  hour  of 
battle,  and  the  feelings  of  honour  and  discipline  which 
held  the  host  together  were  drawn  from  the  common  duty 
of  every  man  in  each  little  group  of  warriors  to  his  house. 
And  as  they  fought  side  by  side  on  the  field,  so  they 
dwelled  side  by  side  on  the  soil.  Harling  abode  by 
Harling,  and  Billing  by  Billing  ;  and  each  "  wick "  or 
"  ham  "  or  "  stead"  or  "  tun  "  took  its  name  from  the  kins- 
men who  dwelled  together  in  it.  In  this  way  the  home  or 
"  ham "  of  the  Billings  was  Billingham,  and  the  "  tun " 
or  township  of  the  Harlings  was  Harlington.  But  in 
such  settlements  the  tie  of  blood  was  widened  into  the 
larger  tie  of  land.  Land  with  the  German  race  seems 
at  a  very  early  time  to  have  become  everywhere  the 
accompaniment  of  full  freedom.  The  freeman  was  strictly 
the  free-holder,  and  the  exercize  of  his  full  rights  as  a  free 
member  of  the  community  to  which  he  belonged  became 
inseparable  from  the  possession  of  his  "  holding "  in  it. 
But  property  had  not  as  yet  reached  that  stage  of  abso- 
lutely personal  possession  which  the  social  philosophy  of 
a  later  time  falsely  regarded  as  its  earliest  state.  The 
woodland  and  pasture-land  of  an  English  village  were 
still  undivided,  and  every  free  villager  had  the  right  of 
turning  into  'it  his  cattle  or  swine.  The  meadow-land 
lay  in  like  manner  open  and  undivided  from  hay-harvest 
to  spring.  It  was  only  when  grass  began  to  grow  afresh 
that  the  common  meadow  was  fenced  off  into  grass-fields, 

O 

one  for  each  household  in  the  village;  and  when  hay- 
harvest  was  over  fence  and  division  were  at  an  end  again. 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


11 


The  plough-land  alone  was  permanently  allotted  in  equal 
shares  both  of  corn-land  and  fallow-land  to  the  families 
of  the  freemen,  though  even  the  plough-land  was  subject 
to  fresh  division  as  the  number  of  claimants  grew  greater 
or  less. 

It  was  this  sharing  in  the  common  land  which  marked 
off  the  freeman  or  ceorl  from  the  urifree  man  or  laet,  the 
tiller    of   land  which  another  owned.     As  the  ceorl  was 
the  descendant  of  settlers  who  whether  from  their  earlier 
arrival  or  from  kinship  with  the  original  settlers  of  the 
village  had  been  admitted  to  a  share  in  its  land  and  its 
corporate   life,    so    the    Iset  was   a   descendant    of    later 
comers  to  whom  such  a  share  was  denied,  or  in  some  cases 
perhaps  of  earlier  dwellers  from  whom  the  land  had  been 
wrested  by  force  of  arms.    In  the  modern  sense  of  freedom 
the  Iset  was  free  enough.     He  had  house  and  home  of  his 
own,  his  life  and  limb  were  as  secure  as  the  ceorl's — save 
as  against  his  lord ;  it  is  probable  from  what  we  see  in 
later  laws  that  as  time  went  on  he  was  recognized  among 
the  three  tribes  as  a  member  of  the  nation,  summoned 
to  the  folk-moot,  allowed  equal  right  at  law,  and  called 
like  the  full  free  man  to  the  hosting.     But  he  was  unfree 
as  regards  lord  and  land.     He  had  neither  part  nor  lot  in 
the  common  land  of  the  village.     The  ground  which  he 
tilled  he  held  of  some  free  man  of  the  tribe  to  whom  he 
paid  rent  in  labour  or  in  kind.     And  this  man  was  his 
lord.     Whatever  rights  the  unfree  villager  might  gain  in 
the  general  social  life  of  his  fellow  villagers,   he  had  no 
rights  as  against  his  lord.     He  could  leave  neither  land  nor 
lord  at  his  will.     He  was  bound  to  render  due  service  to 
his  lord  in  tillage  or  in  fight.     So  long  however  as  these 
services  were  done  the  land  was  his  own.     His  lord  could 
not  take  it  from  him  ;  and  he  was  bound  to  give  him  aid 
and  protection  in  exchange  for  his  services. 

Far  different  from  the  position  of  the  iset  was  that  of  the 
slave,  though  there  is  no  ground  for  believing  that  the 
slave  class  was  other  than  a  small  one.  It  was  a  class 


CHAP.  I. 

The 
English 

Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
077. 

Lcet  and 
Slave. 


12 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


The 
Moot. 


which  sprang  mainly  from  debt  or  crime.  Famine  drove 
men  to  "  bend  their  heads  in  the  evil  days  for  meat ;  "  the 
debtor,  unable  to  discharge  his  debt,  flung  on  the  ground 
his  freeman's  sword  and  spear,  took  up  the  labourer's 
mattock,  and  placed  his  head  as  a  slave  within  a  master's 
hands.  The  criminal  whose  kinsfolk  would  not  make  up 
his  fine  became  a  crime-serf  of  the  plaintiff  or  the  king. 
Sometimes  a  father  pressed  by  need  sold  children  and  wife 
into  bondage.  In  any  case  the  slave  became  part  of  the 
live  stock  of  his  master's  estate,  to  be  willed  away  at  death 
with  horse  or  ox,  whose  pedigree  was  kept  as  carefully  as 
his  own.  His  children  were  bondsmen  like  himself ;  even  a 
freeman's  children  by  a  slave  mother  inherited  the  mother's 
taint.  "  Mine  is  the  calf  that  is  born  of  my  cow,"  ran  an 
English  proverb.  Slave  cabins  clustered  round  the  home- 
stead of  every  rich  landowner;  ploughman,  shepherd, 
goatherd,  swineherd,  oxherd  and  cowherd,  dairymaid, 
barnman,  sower,  hay  ward  and  woodward,  were  often  slaves. 
It  was  not  indeed  slavery  such  as  we  have  known  in 
modern  times,  for  stripes  and  bonds  were  rare :  if  the 
slave  was  slain  it  was  by  an  angry  blow,  not  by  the  lash. 
But  his  master  could  slay  him  if  he  would  ;  it  was  but 
a  chattel  the  less.  The  slave  had  no  place  in  the  justice 
court,  no  kinsmen  to  claim  vengeance  or  guilt-fine  for 
his  wrong.  If  a  stranger  slew  him  his  lord  claimed  the 
damages ;  if  guilty  of  wrong-doing,  "  his  skin  paid  for 
him"  under  his  master's  lash.  If  he  fled  he  might  be 
chased  like  a  strayed  beast,  and  when  caught  he  might  be 
flogged  to  death.  If  the  wrong-doer  were  a  woman-slave 
she  might  be  burned. 

With  the  public  life  of  the  village  however  the  slave  had 
nothing,  the  Iset  in  early  days  little,  to  do.  In  its  Moot, 
the  common  meeting  of  its  villagers  for  justice  and  govern- 
ment, a  slave  had  no  place  or  voice,  while  the  Iset  was 
originally  represented  by  the  lord  whose  land  he  tilled. 
The  life,  the  sovereignty  of  the  settlement  resided  solely  in 
the  body  of  the  freemen  whose  holdings  lay  round  the 


EAELY  ENGLAND.     449-1071. 


13 


moot-hill  or  the  sacred  tree  where  the  community  met  from 
time  to  time  to  deal  out  its  own  justice  and  to  make  its 
own  laws.  Here  new  settlers  were  admitted  to  the  free- 
dom of  the  township,  and  bye-laws  framed  and  headman 
and  tithing-man  chosen  for  its  governance.  Here  plough- 
land  and  meadow-land  were  shared  in  due  lot  among  the 
villagers,  and  field  and  homestead  passed  from  man  to 
man  by  the  delivery  of  a  turf  cut  from  its  soil.  Here 
strife  of  farmer  with  farmer  was  settled  according  to  the 
"  customs  "  of  the  township  as  its  elder  men  stated  them, 
and  four  men  were  chosen  to  follow  headman  or  ealdor- 
man  to  hundred-court  or  war.  It  is  with  a  reverence  such 
as  is  stirred  by  the  sight  of  the  head-waters  of  some 
mighty  river  that  one  looks  back  to  these  village-moots  of 
Friesland  or  Sleswick.  It  was  here  that  England  learned 
to  be  a  "  mother  of  Parliaments."  It  was  in  these  tiny 
knots  of  fanners  that  the  men  from  whom  Englishmen 
were  to  spring  learned  the  worth  of  public  opinion,  of 
public  discussion,  the  worth  of  the  agreement,  the  "  com- 
mon sense,"  the  general  conviction  to  which  discussion 
leads,  as  of  the  laws  which  derive  their  force  from  being 
expressions  of  that  general  conviction.  A  humourist  of 
our  own  day  has  laughed  at  Parliaments  as  "talking 
shops,"  and  the  laugh  has  been  echoed  by  some  who  have 
taken  humour  for  argument.  But  talk  is  persuasion,  and 
persuasion  is  force,  the  one  force  which  can  sway  freemen 
to  deeds  such  as  those  which  have  ma'de  England  what  she 
is.  The  "  talk  "  of  the  village  moot,  the  strife  and  judgement 
of  men  giving  freely  their  own  rede  and  setting  it  as  freely 
aside  for  what  they  learn  to  be  the  wiser  rede  of  other 
men,  is  the  groundwork  of  English  history. 

Small  therefore  as  it  might  be,  the  township  or  village 
was  thus  the  primary  and  perfect  type  of  English  life, 
domestic,  social,  and  political  All  that  England  has  been 
since  lay  there.  But  changes  of  which  we  know  nothing 
had  long  before  the  time  at  which  our  history  opens 
grouped  these  little  commonwealths  together  in  larger 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


The 
Folk. 


14 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449 
577. 


CHAP.  I.  communities,  whether  we  name  them  Tribe,  People,  or 
Polk.  The  ties  of  race  and  kindred  were  no  doubt  drawn 
tighter  by  the  needs  of  war.  The  organization  of  each 
Folk,  as  such,  sprang  in  all  likelihood  mainly  from  war, 
from  a  common  greed  of  conquest,  a  common  need  of 
defence.  Its  form  at  any  rate  was  wholly  military.  The 
Folk-moot  was  in  fact  the  war-host,  the  gathering  of  every 
freeman  of  the  tribe  in  arms.  The  head  of  the  Folk,  a 
head  who  existed  only  so  long  as  war  went  on,  was  the 
leader  whom  the  host  chose  to  command  it.  Its  Witena- 
gemote  or  meeting  of  wise  men  was  the  host's  council  of 
war,  the  gathering  of  those  ealdormen  who  had  brought 
the  men  of  their  villages'  to  the  field.  The  host  was 
formed  by  levies  from  the  various  districts  of  the  tribe; 
the  larger  of  which  probably  owed  their  name  of  "  hun- 
dreds "  to  the  hundred  warriors  which  each  originally  sent 
to  it.  In  historic  times  however  the  regularity  of  such  a 
military  organization,  if  it  ever  existed,  had  passed  away, 
and  the  quotas  varied  with  the  varying  customs  of  each 
district.  But  men,  whether  many  or  few,  were  still  due 
from  each  district  to  the  host,  and  a  cry  of  war  at  once 
called  town-reeve  and  hundred-reeve  with  their  followers 
to  the  field. 

The  military  organization  of  the  tribe  thus  gave  from  the 
first  its  form  to  the  civil  organization.  But  the  peculiar 
shape  which  its  civil  organization  assumed  was  determined 
by  a  principle  familiar  to  the  Germanic  races  and  destined 
to  exercize  a  vast  influence  on  the  future  of  mankind. 
This  was  the  principle  of  representation.  The  four  or  ten 
villagers  who  followed  the  reeve  of  each  township  to  the 
general  muster  of  the  hundred  were  held  to  represent  the 
whole  body  of  the  township  from  whence  they  came. 
Their  voice  was  its  voice,  their  doing  its  doing,  their 
pledge  its  pledge.  The  hundred-moot,  a  moot  which  was 
made  by  this  gathering  of  the  representatives  of  the  town- 
ships that  lay  within  its  bounds,  thus  became  at  once  a 
court  of  appeal  from  the  moots  of  each  separate  village  as 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449-1071. 


15 


well  as  of  arbitration  in  dispute  between  township  and 
township.  The  judgement  of  graver  crimes  and  of  life  or 
death  fell  to  its  share ;  while  it  necessarily  possessed  the 
same  right  of  law-making  for  the  hundred  that  the  village- 
moot  possessed  for  each  separate  village.  And  as  hundred- 
moot  stood  above  town-moot,  so  above  the  hundred-moot 
stood  the  Folk-moot,  the  general  muster  of  the  people  in 
arms,  at  once  war-host  and  highest  law-court  and  general 
Parliament  of  the  tribe.  But  whether  in  Folk-moot  or 
hundred-moot,  the  principle  of  representation  was  preserved. 
In  both  the  constitutional  forms,  the  forms  of  deliberation 
and  decision,  were  the  same.  In  each  the  priests  pro- 
claimed silence,  the  ealdormen  of  higher  blood  spoke, 
groups  of  freemen  from  each  township  stood  round,  shaking 
their  spears  in  assent,  clashing  shields  in  applause,  settling 
matters  in  the  end  by  loud  shouts  of  "  Aye  "  or  "  Nay." 

Of  the  social  or  the  industrial  life  of  our  fathers  in  this 
older  England  we  know  less  than  of  their  political  life. 
But  there  is  no  ground  for  believing  them  to  have  been 
very  different  in  these  respects  from  the  other  German 
peoples  who  were  soon  to  overwhelm  the  Roman  world. 
Though  their  border  nowhere  touched  the  border  of  the 
Empire  they  were  far  from  being  utterly  strange  to  its 
civilization.  Roman  commerce  indeed  reached  the  shores 
of  the  Baltic,  and  we  have  abundant  evidence  that  the  arts 
and  refinement  of  Rome  were  brought  into  contact  with 
these  earlier  Englishmen.  Brooches,  sword-belts,  and 
shield-bosses  which  have  been  found  in  Sleswick,  and 
which  can  be  dated  not  later  than  the  close  of  the  third 
century,  are  clearly  either  of  Roman  make  or  closely 
modelled  on  Roman  metal-work.  The  vessels  of  twisted 
glass  which  we  know  to  have  been  in  use  at  the  tables 
of-  English  and  Saxon  chieftains  came,  we  can  hardly 
doubt,  from  Roman  glass-works.  Discoveries  of  Roman 
coins  in  Sleswick  peat-mosses  afford  a  yet  more  con- 
clusive proof  of  direct  intercourse  with  the  Empire. 
But  apart  from  these  outer  influences  the  men  of  the 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conques^ 

of 
Britain 

449 
577. 


Social 
Life. 


16 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


Religion. 


three  tribes  were  far  from  beiDg  mere  savages.  They 
were  fierce  warriors,  but  they  were  also  busy  fishers 
and  tillers  of  the  soil,  as  proud  of  their  skill  in  handling 
plough  and  mattock  or  steering  the  rude  boat  with  which 
they  hunted  walrus  and  whale  as  of  their  skill  in  handling 
sword  and  spear.  They  were  hard  drinkers,  no  doubt,  as 
they  were  hard  toilers,  and  the  "  ale-feast "  was  the  centre 
of  their  social  life.  But  coarse  as  the  revel  might  seem  to 
modern  eyes,  the  scene  within  the  timbered  hall  which 
rose  in  the  midst  of  their  villages  was  often  Homeric  in 
its  simplicity  and  dignity.  Queen  or  Eorl's  wife  with  a 
train  of  maidens  bore  ale-bowl  or  mead-bowl  round  the 
hall  from  the  high  settle  of  King  or  Ealdorman  in  the 
midst  to  the  mead  benches  ranged  around  its  walls,  while 
the  gleeman  sang  the  hero-songs  of  his  race.  Dress  and 
arms  showed  traces  of  a  love  of  art  and  beauty,  none  the 
less  real  that  it  was  rude  and  incomplete.  Rings,  amulets, 
ear-rings,  neck  pendants,  proved  in  their  workmanship  the 
deftness  of  the  goldsmith's  art.  Cloaks  were  often 
fastened  with  golden  buckles  of  curious  and  exquisite 
form,  set  sometimes  with  rough  jewels  and  inlaid  with 
enamel.  The  bronze  boar-crest  on  the  warrior's  helmet, 
the  intricate  adornment  of  the  warrior's  shield,  tell  like 
the  honour  in  which  the  smith  was  held  their  tale  of 
industrial  art.  It  is  only  in  the  English  pottery,  hand- 
made, and  marked  with  coarse  zig-zag  patterns,  that  we 
find  traces  of  utter  rudeness. 

The  religion  of  these  men  was  the  same  as  that  of  the 
rest  of  the  German  peoples.  Christianity  had  by  this 
time  brought  about  the  conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
but  it  had  not  penetrated  as  yet  among  the  forests  of  the 
north.  The  common  God  of  the  English  people  was  Woden, 
the  war-god,  the  guardian  of  ways  and  boundaries,  to  whom 
his  worshippers  attributed  the  invention  of  letters,  and 
whom  every  tribe  held  to  be  the  first  ancestor  of  its  kings. 
Our  own  names  for  the  days  of  the  week  still  recall  to 
us  the  gods  whom  our  fathers  worshipped  in  their 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


17 


German  homeland.  "Wednesday  is  Woden's-day,  as 
Thursday  is  the,  day  of  Thunder,  the  god  of  air  and  storm 
and  rain.  Friday  is  Frea's-day,  the  deity  of  peace  and  joy 
and  fruitt'ulness,  whose  emblems,  borne  aloft  by  dancing 
maidens,  brought  increase  to  every  Held  and  stall  they 
visited.  Saturday  commemorates  an  obscure  god  Ssetere  ; 
Tuesday  the  dark  god,  Tiw,  to  meet  whom  was  death. 
Eostre,  the  god  of  the  dawn  or  of  the  spring,  lends  his 
name  to  the  Christian  festival  of  the  Eesurrection. 
Behind  these  floated  the  dim  shapes  of  an  older  mytho- 
logy ;  "  Wyrd,"  the  death-goddess,  whose  memory  lingered 
long  in  the  "Weird*"  of  northern  superstition  ;  or  the  Shield- 
maidens,  the  "mighty  women"  who,  an  old  rime  tells 
us,  "  wrought  on  the  battle-field  their  toil  and  hurled 
the  thrilling  javelins."  Nearer  to  the  popular  fancy 
lay  deities  of  wood  and  fell  or  hero-gods  of  legend  and 
song ;  Xicor,  the  water-sprite  who  survives  in  our  nixies 
and  "  Old  Nick  "  ;  Weland,  the  forger  of  weighty  shields 
and  sharp-biting  swords,  who  found  a  later  home  in  the 
"  Weyland's  smithy  "  of  Berkshire  ;  Egil,  the  hero -archer, 
whose  legend  is  one  with  that  of  Cloudesly  or  Tell.  A 
nature- worship  of  this  sort  lent  itself  ill  to  the  purposes  of 
a  priesthood  ;  and  though  a  priestly  class  existed  it  seems 
at  no  time  to  have  had  much  weight  among  Englishmen. 
As  each  freeman  was  his  own  judge  and  his  own  lawmaker, 
so  he  was  his  own  house-priest ;  and  English  worship  lay 
commonly  in  the  sacrifice  which  the  house-father  offered  to 
the  gods  of  his  hearth. 

It  is  not  indeed  in  Woden-worship  or  in  the  worship  of 
the  older  gods  of  flood  and  fell  that  we  must  look  for  the 
real  religion  of  our  fathers.  The  song  of  Beowulf,  though 
the  earliest  of  English  poems,  is  as  we  have  it  now  a  poem 
of  the  eighth  century,  the  work  it  may  be  of  some  English 
missionary  of  the  days  of  Baeda  and  Boniface  who  gathered 
in  the  very  homeland  of  his  race  the  legends  of  its  earlier 
prime.  But  the  thin  veil  of  Christianity  which  he  has 
flung  over  it  fades  away  as  we  follow  the  hero-legend  of 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449 
577. 


The 

English 
Temper. 


18 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 


English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
677. 


our  fathers  ;  and  the  secret  of  their  moral  temper,  of  their 
conception  of  life  breathes  through  every  line.  Life  was 
built  with  them  not  on  the  hope  of  a  hereafter,  but  on  the 
Prou(l  self-consciousness  of  noble  souls.  "  I  have  this  folk 
ruled  these  fifty  winters,"  sings  a  hero-king  as  he  sits 
death-smitten  beside  the  dragon's  mound.  "  Lives  there 
no  folk-king  of  kings  about  me  —  not  any  one  of  them  —  dare 
in  the  war-strife  welcome  my  onset  !  Time's  change  and 
chances  I  have  abided,  held  my  own  fairly,  sought  not  to 
snare  men  ;  oath  never  sware  I  falsely  against  right.  So 
for  all  this  may  I  glad  be  at  heart  now,  sick  though  I  sit 
here,  wounded  with  death-wounds  !  "  In  men  of  such  a 
temper,  strong  with  the  strength  of  manhood  and  full  of 
the  vigour  and  the  love  of  life,  the  sense  of  its  shortness 
and  of  the  mystery  of  it  all  woke  chords  of  a  pathetic 
poetry.  "  Soon  will  it  be,"  ran  the  warning  rime,  "  that 
sickness  or  sword-blade  shear  thy  strength  from  thee,  or 
the  fire  ring  thee,  or  the  Hood  whelm  thee,  or  the  sword 
grip  thee,  or  arrow  hit  thee,  or  age  o'ertake  thee,  and  thine 
eye's  brightness  sink  down,  in  darkness."  Strong  as  he 
might  be,  man  struggled  in  vain  with  the  doom  that 
encompassed  him,  that  girded  his  life  with  a  thousand 
perils  and  broke  it  at  so  short  a  span.  "  To  us,"  cries 
Beowulf  in  his  last  fight,  "  to  us  it  shall  be  as  our  Weird 
betides,  that  "Weird  that  is  every  man's  lord  !  "  But  the 
sadness  with  which  these  Englishmen  fronted  the  mysteries 
of  life  and  death  had  nothing  in  it  of  the  unmanly 
despair  which  bids  men  eat  and  drink  for  to-morrow  they 
die.  Death  leaves  man  man  and  master  of  his,  fate.  The 
thought  of  good  fame,  of  manhood,  is  stronger  than  the 
thought  of  doom.  "Well  shall  a  man  do  when  in  the 
strife  he  minds  but  of  winning  longsome  renown,  nor  for 
his  life  cares  !  "  "  Death  is  better  than  life  of  shame  !  " 
cries  Beowulf's  sword-fellow.  Beowulf  himself  takes  up 
his  strife  with  the  fiend,  "  go  the  weird  as  it  will."  If  life 
is  short,  the  more  cause  to  work  bravely  till  it  is  over. 
"  Each  man  of  us  shall  abide  the  end  of  his  life-work  ;  let 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071. 


19 


him.  that  may  work,  work  his  doomed  deeds  ere  death 
come  ! " 

The  energy  of  these  peoples  found  vent  in  a  restlessness 
which  drove  them  to  take  part  in  the  general  attack  of  the 
German  race  on  the  Empire  of  Rome.  For  busy  tillers 
and  busy  fishers  as  Englishmen  were,  they  were  at  heart 
fighters  '«  and  their  world  was  a  world  of  war.  Tribe  warred 

O 

with  tribe,  and  village  with  village;  even  within  the 
township  itself  feuds  parted  household  from  household,  and 
passions  of  hatred  and  vengeance  were  handed  on  from  father 
to  son.  Their  mood  was  above  all  a  mood  of  fighting  men, 
venturesome,  self-reliant,  proud,  with  a  dash  of  hardness  and 
cruelty  in  it,  but  ennobled  by  the  virtues  which  spring 
from  war,  by  personal  courage  and  loyalty  to  plighted  word, 
by  a  high  and  stern  sense  of  manhood  and  the  worth  of 
man.  A  grim  joy  in  hard  fighting  was  already  a  charac- 
teristic of  the  race.  War  was  the  Englishman's  "  shield- 
play  "  and  "  sword-game  " ;  the  gleeman's  verse  took  fresh 
fire  as  he  sang  of  the  rush  of  .the  host  and  the  crash  of  its 
shield-line.  Their  arms  and  weapons,  helmet  and  mailshirt, 
tall  spear  and  javelin,  sword  and  seax,  the  short  broad 
dagger  that  hung  at  each  warrior's  girdle,  gathered  to  them 
much  of  the  legend  and  the  art  which  gave  colour  and 
poetry  to  the  life  of  Englishmen.  Each  sword  had  its 
name  like  a  living  thing.  And  next  to  their  love  of  war 
came  their  love  of  the  sea.  Everywhere  throughout 
Beowulf's  song,  as  everywhere  throughout  the  life  that  it 
pictures,  we  catch  the  salt  whiff  of  the  sea.  The  English- 
man was  as  proud  of  his  sea-craft  as  of  his  war-craft ; 
sword  in  teeth  he  plunged  into  the  sea  to  meet  walrus  and 
sea-lion  ;  he  told  of  his  whale-chase  amidst  the  icy  waters 
of  the  north.  Hardly  less  than  his  love  for  the  sea  was 
the  love  he  bore  to  the  ship  that  traversed  it.  In  the  fond 
playfulness  of  English  verse  the  ship  was  "the  wave- 
floater,"  "  the  foam-necked,"  "  like  a  bird  "  as  it  skimmed 
the  wave-crest,  "  like  a  swan  "  as  its  curved  prow  breasted 
the  "  swan-road  "  of  the  sea. 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 

English 
Piracy. 


20 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain 

499- 
577. 


Britain. 


Their  passion  for  the  sea  marked  out  for  them  their  part 
in  the  general  movement  of  the  German  nations.  While 
Goth  and  Lombard  were  slowly  advancing  over  mountain 
and  plain  the  boats  of  the  Englishmen  pushed  faster  over  the 
sea.  Bands  of  English  rovers,  outdriven  by  stress  of  fight, 
had  long  found  a  home  there,  and  lived  as  they  could  by  sack 
of  vessel  or  coast.  Chance  has  preserved  for  us  in  a  Sleswick 
peat-bog  one  of  the  war-keels  of  these  early  pirates.  The 
boat  is  flat-bottomed,  seventy  feet  long  and  eight  or  nine 
feet  wide,  its  sides  of  oak  boards  fastened  with  bark  ropes 
and  iron  bolts.  Fifty  oars  drove  it  over  the  waves  with  a 
freight  of  warriors  whose  arms,  axes,  swords,  lances,  and 
kuives  were  found  heaped  together  in  its  hold.  Like  the 
galleys  of  the  Middle  Ages  such  boats  could  only  creep 
cautiously  along  from  harbour  to  harbour  in  rough  weather  ; 
but  in  smooth  water  their  swiftness  fitted  them  admirably 
for  the  piracy  by  which  the  men  of  these  tribes  were 
already  making  themselves  dreaded.  Its  flat  bottom  en- 
abled them  to  beach  the  vessel  on  any  fitting  coast ;  and  a 
step  on  shore  at  once  transformed  the  boatmen  into  a  war- 
band.  From  the  first  the  daring  of  the  English  race  broke 
out  in  the  secrecy  and  suddenness  of  the  pirates'  swoop,  in 
the  fierceness  of  their  onset,  in  the  careless  glee  with 
which  they  seized  either  sword  or  oar.  "  Foes  are  they," 
sang  a  Eoman  poet  of  the  time,  "  fierce  beyond  other  foes 
and  cunning  as  they  are  fierce ;  the  sea  is  their  school  of 
war  and  the  storm  their  friend  ;  they  are  sea-wolves  that 
prey  on  the  pillage  of  the  world  ! " 

Of  the  three  English  tribes  the  Saxons  lay  nearest  to 
the  Empire,  and  they  were  naturally  the  first  to  touch 
the  Eoman  world ;  before  the  close  of  the  third  century 
indeed  their  boats  appeared  in  such  force  in  the  English 
Channel  as  to  call  for  a  special  fleet  to  resist  them.  The 
piracy  of  our  fathers  had  thus  brought  them  to  the 
shores  of  a  land  which,  dear  as  it  is  now  to  English- 
men, had  not  as  yet  been  trodden  by  English  feet.  This 
land  was  Britain.  When  the  Saxon  boats  touched  its 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  21 

coast  the   island    was  the  westernmost  province    of    the     CHAP.  I. 
Eoman  Empire.      In  the  fifty-fifth  year  before  Christ  a        ^ 
descent    of    Julius    Csesar    revealed    it    to    the    Eoman    ^n^gst 
world ;  and  a  century  after  Cesar's  landing  the  Emperor     Britain 
Claudius  undertook  its  conquest.     The  work  was  swiftly      4^9. 
carried  out.     Before  thirty  years  were  over  the  bulk    of      S77 
the  island  had  passed  beneath  the  Eoman  sway  and  the 
Eoman  frontier  had  been  carried  to  the  Firths  of  Forth 
and  of  Clyde.     The  work  of  civilization  followed  fast  on 
the  work  of  the  sword.     To  the  last  indeed  the  distance  of 
the  island  from  the  seat  of.  empire  left  her  less  Eornanized 
than  any  other  province  of   the  west.     The  bulk  of  the 
population  scattered  over   the    country  seem,   in  spite  of 
imperial  edicts    to   have    clung   to   their    old    law  as   to 
their  old  language,  and  to  have  retained  some  traditional 
allegiance  to  their  native  chiefs.     But  Eoman  civilization 
rested  mainly  on  city  life,  and   in  Britain  as  elsewhere 
the    city    was   thoroughly    Eoman.      In    towns    such   as 
Lincoln  or  York,  governed  by  their  own  municipal  officers, 
guarded  by   massive    walls,    and   linked   together   by   a 
network  of    magnificent  roads  which  reached   from    one 
end  of  the  island  to  the  other,  manners,  language,  political 
life,  all  were  of  Eome. 

For  three  hundred  years  the  Eoman  sword  secured  order 
and  peace  without  Britain  and  within,  and  with  peace  and 
order  came  a  wide  and  rapid  prosperity.  Commerce  sprang 
up  in  ports  amongst  which  London  held  the  first  rank ; 
agriculture  flourished  till  Britain  became  one  of  the 
corn-exporting  countries  of  the  world;  the  mineral  re- 
sources of  the  province  were  explored  in  the  tin  mines 
of  Cornwall,  the  lead  mines  of  Somerset  or  Northumber- 
land, and  the  iron  mines  of  the  Forest  of  Dean.  But 
evils  which  sapped  the  strength  of  the  whole  Empire  told 
at  last  on  the  province  of  Britain.  Wealth  and  popu- 
lation alike  declined  under  a  crushing  system  of  taxation, 
under  restrictions  which  fettered  industry,  under  a  des- 
potism which  crushed  out  all  local  independence.  And 

YOL.  I.— 3 


22 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain, 

449- 
577. 


Conqttests 

of  Jute 

anil 

Saxon. 


with  decay  within  came  danger  from  without.  For 
centuries  past  the  Roman  frontier  had  held  back  the 
barbaric  world  beyond  it,  the  Parthian  of  the  Euphrates, 
the  Numidian  of  the  African  desert,  the  German  of  the 
Danube  or  the  Ehine.  In  Britain  a  wall  drawn  from 
Newcastle  to  Carlisle  bridled  the  British  tribes,  the 
Picts  as  they  were  called,  who  had  been  sheltered  from 
Roman  conquest  by  the  fastnesses  of  the  Highlands.  It 
was  this  mass  of  savage  barbarism  which  broke  upon  the 
Empire  as  it  sank  into  decay.  In  its  western  dominions 
the  triumph  of  these  assailants  was  complete.  The  Franks 
conquered  and  colonized  Gaul.  The  West-Goths  con- 
quered and  colonized  Spain.  The  Vandals  founded  a 
kingdom  in  Africa.  The  Burgundians  encamped  in  the 
border-land  between  Italy  and  the  Rhone.  The  East-Goths 
ruled  at  last  in  Italy  itself. 

It  was  to  defend  Italy  against  the  Goths  that  Rome  in 
the  opening  of  the  fifth  century  withdrew  her  legions  from 
Britain,  and  from  that  moment  the  province  was  left  to 
struggle  unaided  against  the  Picts.  Nor  were  these  its  only 
enemies.  While  marauders  from  Ireland,  whose  inhabit- 
ants then  bore  the  name  of  Scots,  harried  the  west,  the  boats 
of  Saxon  pirates,  as  we  have  seen,  were  swarming  off  its 
eastern  and  southern  coasts.  For  forty  years  Britain  held 
bravely  out  against  these  assailants  ;  but  civil  strife  broke 
its  powers  of  resistance,  and  its  rulers  fell  back  at  last  on 
the  fatal  policy  by  which  the  Empire  invited  its  doom 
while  striving  to  avert  it,  the  policy  of  matching  barbarian 
against  barbarian.  By  the  usual  promises  of  land  and 
pay  a  band  of  warriors  was  drawn  for  this  purpose  from 
Jutland  in  449  with  two  ealdormen,  Hengest  and  Horsa,  at 
their  head.]  If  by  English  history  we  mean  the  history  of 
EngTishrnen  in  the  land  which  from  that  time  they  made 
their  own,  it  is  with  this  lauding  of  Hengest's  war-bandj 
that  English  history  begins.  They  landed  on  the  shores  of 
the  Isle  of  Thanet  at  a  spot  known  since  as  E_bb_sfleet.  No 
spat  can  be  so  sacred  to  Englishmen  as  the  spot  wEich  first 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071. 


23 


The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


felt  the  tread  of  English  feet.  There  is  little  to  catch  the  CHAP.  I. 
eye  in  Ebbsfleet  itself,  a  mere  lift  of  ground  with  a  few  grey 
cottages  dotted  over  it,  cut  off  now-a-days  from  the  sea  by 
a  reclaimed  meadow  and  a  sea-wall.  But  taken  as  a 
whole  the  scene  has  a  wild  beauty  of  its  own.  To  the 
right  the  white  curve  of  Eamsgate  cliffs  looks  down  on  the 
crescent  of  Pegwell  Bay ;  far  away  to  the  left  across  grey 
marsh-levels  where  smoke-wreaths  mark  the  site  of  Eich- 
borough  and  Sandwich  the  coast-line  trends  dimly  towards 
Deal.  Everything  in  the  character  of  the  spot  confirms 
the  national  tradition  which  fixed  here  the  landing  place 
of  our  fathers  ;  for  the  physical  changes  of  the  country 
since  the  fifth  century  have  told  little  on  its  main  features- 
At  the  time  of  Hengest's  landing  a  broad  inlet  of  sea  parted 
Thanet  from  the  mainland  of  Britain ;  and  through  this 
inlet  the  pirate  boats  would  naturally  come  sailing  with 
a  fair  wind  to  what  was  then  the  gravel-spit  of  Ebbsfieet. 

The  work  for  which  the  mercenaries  had  been  hired  was 
quickly  done  ;  and  the  Picts  are  said  to  have  been  scattered 
to  the  winds  in  a  battle  fought  on  the  eastern  coast  of 
Britain.  But  danger  from  the  Pict  was  hardly  over  when 
danger  came  from  the  Jutes  themselves.  Their  fellow-pirates 
must  have  nocked  from  the  Channel  to  their  settlement  in 
Thanet ;  the  inlet  between  Thanet  and  the  mainland  was 
crossed,  and  the  Englishmen  won  their  first  victory  over  the 
Britons  in  forcing  their  passage  of  the  Medway  at  the 
village  of  Aylesford.  A  second  defeat  at  the  passage  of 
the  Cray  drove  the  British  forces  in  terror  upon  London ; 
but  the  ground  was  soon  won  back  again,  and  it  was  not 
till  465  that  a  series  of  petty  conflicts  which  had  gone  on 
along  the  shores  of  Thanet  made  way  for  a  decisive  struggle 
at  Wippedsfleet.  Here  however  the  overthrow  was  so 
terrible  that  from  this  moment  ail  hope  of  saving  Northern 
Kent  seems  to  have  been  abandoned,  and  it  was  only  on  its 
southern  shore  that  the  Britons  held  their  ground.  Ten 
years  later,  in  475,  the  long  contest  was  over,  and  with  the 
fall  of  Lymne,  whose  broken  walls  look  from  the  slope  to 


24 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


CHAP.  I.    which  they  cling  over  the  great  flat  of  Romney  Marsh,  the 
work  of  the  first  English  conqueror  was  done. 

The  warriors  of  Hengest  had  been  drawn  from  the  Jutes, 
the  smallest  of  the  three  tribes  who  were  to  blend  in  the 
English  people.  But  the  greed  of  plunder  now  told  on  the 
great  tribe  which  stretched  from  the  Elbe  to  the  Ehine, 
and  in  477  Saxon  invaders  were  seen  pushing  slowly  along 
the  strip  of  land  which  lay  westward  of  Kent  between  the 
weald  and  the  sea.  Nowhere  has  the  physical  aspect  of 
the  country  more  utterly  changed.  A  vast  sheet  of 
scrub,  woodland,  and  waste  which  then  bore  the  name  of 
the  Andredsweald  stretched  for  more  than  a  hundred  miles 
from  the  borders  of  Kent  to  the  Hampshire  Downs,  ex- 
tending northward  almost  to  the  Thames  and  leaving  only 
a  thin  strip  of  coast  which  now  bears  the  name  of  Sussex 
between  its  southern  edge  and  the  sea.  This  coast  was 
guarded  by  a  fortress  which  occupied  the  spot  now  called 
Pevensey,  the  future  landing-place  of  the  Norman  Con- . 
queror ;  and  the  fall  of  this  fortress  of  Anderida  in  491 
established  the  kingdom  of  the  South-Saxons.  "^Elle 
and  Cissa  beset  Anderida,"  so  ran  the  pitiless  record  of 
the  conquerors,  "and  slew  all  tha.t  were  therein,  nor 
was  there  afterwards  one  Briton  left."  But  Hengest  and 
file's  men  had  touched  hardly  more  than  the  coast, 
and  the  true  conquest  of  Southern  Britain  was  reserved 
for  a  fresh  band  of  Saxons,  a  tribe  known  as  the 
Gewissas,  who  landed  under  Cerdic  and  Cynric  on  the 
shores  of  the  Southampton  Water,  and  pushed  in  495 
to  the  great  downs  or  Gwent  where  Winchester  offered 
so  rich  a  prize.  Nowhere  was  the  strife  fiercer  than 
here;  and  it  was  not  till  519  that  a  decisive  victory  at 
Charford  ended  the  struggle 'for  the  "Gwent"  and  set 
the  crown  of  the  West-Saxons  on  the  head  of  Cerdic. 
But  the  forest-belt  around  it  checked  any  further  advance  ; 
and  only  a  year  after  Charford  the  Britons  rallied 
under  a  new  leader.  Arthur,  and  threw  back  the  invaders 
as  they  pressed  westward  through  the  Dorsetshire  wood- 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  25 

lands  in  a  great  overthrow  at  Badbury  or  Mount  Badon.     CHAP.  I. 
The  defeat  was  followed  by  a  long  pause  in  the  Saxon,       Th? 
advance  from  the  southern  coast,  but  while  the  Gewissas    conquest 
rested  a  series  of  victories  whose  history  is  lost  was  giving     Britain, 
to  men  of  the   same  Saxon  tribe  the  coast  district  north 
of  the  mouth  of  the  Thames.     It  is  probable  however  that 
the  strength  of   Camulodunum,  the    predecessor   of  our 
modern  Colchester,  made  the  progress  of  these  assailants  a 
slow  and  doubtful  one ;  and  even  when  its  reduction  enabled 
the   East-Saxons  to  occupy  the  territory  to  which  they 
have    given    their   name    of  Essex   a   line   of  woodland 
which  has  left  its  traces  in  Epping  and  Hainault  Forests 
checked   their   further   advance   into   the   island. 

Though  seventy  years  had  passed  since  the  victory  of  Conquests 
Aylesford  only  the  outskirts  of  Britain  were  won.  The 
invaders  were  masters  as  yet  but  of  Kent,  Sussex,  Hamp- 
shire, and  Essex.  From  London  to  St.  David's  Head,  from 
the  Andredsweald  to  the  Firth  of  Forth  the  country  still 
remained  unconquered  :  and  there  was  little  in  the  years 
which  followed  Arthur's  triumph  to  herald  that  onset  of 
the  invaders  which  was  soon  to  make  Britain  England. 
Till  now,  its  assailants  had  been  drawn  from  two  only  of 
the  three  tribes  whom  we  saw  dwelling  by  the  northern 
sea,  from  the  Saxons  and  the.  Jutes.  But  the  main  work 
of  conquest  was  to  be  done  by  the  third,  by  the  tribe 
which  bore  that  name  of  Engle  or  Englishmen  which 
was  to  absorb  that  of  Saxon  oFTTute  arid  to  stamjTitself 
01  the  people  which  sprang  from  the  union  of  the 
couquerors  as  on  the  land  that  they  won.  The  Engle  had 
probably  been  settling  for  years  along  the  coast  of 
Xorthumbria  and  in  the  great  district  which  was  cut  off 
1'rom  the  rest  of  Britain  by  the  Wash  and  the  Fens,  the 
later  East-Anglia.  But  it  was  not  till  the  moment  we 
have  reached  that  the  line  of  defences  which  had  hitherto 
held  the  invaders  at  bay  was  turned  by  their  appearance 
in  the  Humber  and  the  Trent.  This  great  river-line  led 
like  a  highway  into  the  heart  of  Britain  ;  and  civil  strife 


26 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449- 
577. 


of  West- 
Saxons. 


seems  to  have  broken  the  strength  of  British  resistance. 
But  of  the  incidents  of  this  final  struggle  we  know  nothing. 
One  part  of  the  English  force  marched  from  th  e  Humber 
over  the  Yorkshire  wolds  to  found  what  was  called  the 
kingdom  of  the  Deirans.  Under  the  Empire  political 
power  had  centred  in  the  district  between  the  Humber  and 
the  Eoman  wall ;  York  was  the  capital  of  Eoman  Britain ; 
villas  of  rich  landowners  studded  the  valley  of  the  Ouse ; 
and  the  bulk  of  the  garrison  maintained  in  the  island  lay 
camped  along  its  northern  border.  But  no  record  tells  us 
how  Yorkshire  was  won,  or  how  the  Engle  made  them- 
selves masters  of  the  uplands  about  Lincoln.  It  is  only 
by  their  later  settlements  that  we  follow  their  march  into 
the  heart  of  Britain.  Seizing  the  valley  of  the  Don  and 
whatever  breaks  there  were  in  the  woodland  that  then 
filled  the  space  between  the  Humber  and  the  Trent,  the 
Engle  followed  the  curve  of  the  latter  river,  and  struck 
along  the  line  of  its  tributary  the  Soar.  Here  round  the 
Eoman  Eatae,  the  predecessor  of  our  Leicester,  settled  a 
tribe  known  as  the  Middle-English,  while  a  small  body 
pushed  further  southwards,  and  under  the  name  of  "  South  - 
Engle  "  occupied  the  oolitic  upland  that  forms  our  present 
Northamptonshire.  But  the  mass  of  the  invaders  seem  to 
have  held  to  the  line  of  the  Trent  and  to  have  pushed 
westward  to  its  head- waters.  Eepton,  Lichfield,  and 
Tamworth  mark  the  country  of  these  western  Englishmen, 
whose  older  name  was  soon  lost  in  that  of  Mercians,  or 
Men  of  the  March.  Their  settlement  was  in  fact  a  new 
march  or  borderland  between  conqueror  and  conquered ; 
for  here  the  impenetrable  fastness  of  the  Peak,  the  mass  of 
Cannock  Chase,  and  the  broken  country  of  Staffordshire 
enabled  the  Briton  to  make  a  fresh  and  desperate  stand. 

It  was  probably  this  conquest  of  Mid-Britain  by  the 
Engle  that  roused  the  West-Saxons  to  a  new  advance.  For 
thirty  years  they  had  rested  inactive  within  the  limits  of 
the  Gwent,  but  in  552  their  capture  of  the  hill-fort  of  Old 
Sarum  threw  open  the  reaches  of  the  Wiltshire  downs  and 


1.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


27 


a  march  of  King  Cutliwulf  on  the  Thames  made  them 
masters  in  571  of  the  districts  which  now  form  Oxfordshire 
and  Berkshire.  Pushing  along  the  upper  valley  of  Avon 
to  a  new  battle  at  Barbury  Hill  they  swooped  at  last  from 
their  uplands  on  the  rich  prey  that  lay  along  the  Severn. 
Gloucester,  Cirencester,  and  Bath,  cities  which  had  leagued 
under  their  British  kings  to  resist  this  onset,  became  in 
577  the  spoil  of  an  English  victory  at  Deorham,  and  the 
line  of  the  great  western  river  lay  open  to  the  arms  of  the 
conquerors.  Once  the  West-Saxons  penetrated  to  the 
borders  of  Chester,  and  Uriconium,  a  town  beside  the 
Wrekin  which  has  been  recently  brought  again  to  light,, 
went  up  in  flames.  The  raid  ended  in  a  crushing  defeat 
which  broke  the  West-Saxon  strength,  but  a  British  poet 
in  verses  still  left  to  us  sings  piteously  the  death-song  of 
Uriconium,  "  the  white  town  in  the  valley,"  the  town  of 
white  stone  gleaming  among  the  green  woodlands.  The 
torch  of  the  foe  had  left  it  a  heap  of  blackened  ruins  where 
the  singer  wandered  through  halls  he  had  known  in  happier 
days,  the  halls  of  its  chief  Kyndylan,  "  without  fire, 
without  light,  without  song,"  their  stillness  broken  only  by 
the  eagle's  scream,  the  eagle  who  "has  swallowed  fresh 
drink,  heart's  blood  of  Kyndylan  the  fair." 


CHAP.  i. 

The 

English 
Conquest 

of 
Britain. 

449 
577 


CHAPTEE  II. 

THE  ENGLISH  KINGDOMS. 

577—796.    • 

WITH  the  victory  of  Deorham  the  conquest  of  the  bulk  of 
Britain  was  complete.  Eastward  of  a  line  which  may  be 
roughly  drawn  along  the  moorlands  of  Northumberland 
and  Yorkshire  through  Derbyshire  and  the  Forest  of  Arden 
to  the  Lower  Severn,  and  thence  by  Mendip  to  the  sea,  the 
island  had  passed  into  English  hands.  Britain  had  in  the 
main  become  England.  And  within  this  new  England  a 
Teutonic  society  was  settled  on  the  wreck  of  Home.  So 
far  as  the  conquest  had  yet  gone  it  had  been  complete. 
Not  a  Briton  remained  as  subject  or  slave  on  English 
ground.  Sullenly,  inch  by  inch,  the  beaten  men  drew 
back  from  the  land  which  their  conquerors  had  won ;  and 
eastward  of  the  border  line  which  the  English  sword  had 
drawn  all  was  now  purely  English. 

It  is  this  which  distinguishes  the  conquest  of  Britain 
from  that  of  the  other  provinces  of  Rome.  The  conquest  of 
Gaul  by  the  Franks  or  that  of  Italy  by  the  Lombards  proved 
little  more  than  a  forcible  settlement  of  the  one  or  the 
other  among  tributary  subjects  who  were  destined  in  a  long 
course  of  ages  to  absorb  their  conquerors.  French  is  the 
tongue,  not  of  the  Frank,  but  of  the  Gaul  whom  he  over- 
came ;  and  the  fair  hair  of  the  Lombard  is  all  but  unknown 
in  Lombardy.  But  the  English  conquest  of  Britain  up  to 
the  point  which  we  have  reached  was  a  sheer  dispossession 
of  the  people  whom  the  English  conquered.  It  was  not 


DOCK  I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  29 


that  Englishmen,  fierce  and  cruel  as  at  times  they  seem  to    CHAP.  II. 
have  been,  were   more  fierce  or   more   cruel  than  other       x^ 
Germans  who  attacked  the  Empire  ;  nor  have  we  any  ground  Ki'n'fcoms, 
for  saying  that  they,  unlike  the  Burgundian  or  the  Erank,      577- 
were  utterly  strange  to  the  Roman  civilization.       Saxon      796' 
mercenaries  are  found  as  well  as  Frank  mercenaries  in 
the  pay  of  Rome ;  and  the  presence  of  Saxon  vessels  in  the 
Channel  for  a  century  before  the  descent  on  Britain  must 
have  familiarized  its  invaders  with  what  civilization  was  to 
be  found  in  the  Imperial  provinces  of  the  West.     What 
really  made  the  difference  between   the  fate  of  Britain 
and  that  of  the  rest  of  the  Roman  world  was  the  stubborn 
courage  of  the  British  themselves.     In  all  the  world- wide 
struggle  between  Rome  and  the  German  peoples  no  land 
was  so  stubbornly  fought  for  or  so  hardly  won.     In  Gaul 
no  native  resistance  met  Erank  or  Visigoth  save  from  the 
brave  peasants  of  Britanny  and  Auvergne.      No  popular 
revolt  broke  out  against  the  rule  of  Odoacer  or  Theodoric 
in  Italy.     But  in  Britain  the  invader  was  met  by  a  courage 
almost  equal  to  his  own.     Instead  of  quartering  themselves 
quietly,  like  their  fellows  abroad,  on  subjects  who  were 
glad  to  buy  peace  by  obedience  and  tribute,  the  English 
had  to   make   every  inch  of  Britain  their  own  by  hard 
fighting. 

This  stubborn  resistance  was  backed  too  by  natural 
obstacles  of  the  gravest  kind.  Everywhere  in  the  Roman 
world  the  work  of  the  conquerors  was  aided  by  the 
civilization  of  Rome.  Vandal  or  Frank  marched  along 
Roman  highways  over  ground  cleared  by  the  Roman  axe 
and  crossed  river  or  ravine  on  the  Roman  bridge.  It  was 
so  doubtless  with  the  English  conquerors  of  Britain.  But 
though  Britain  had  long  been  Roman,  her  distance  from 
the  seat  of  Empire  left  her  less  Romanized  than  any  other 
province  of  the  West.  Socially  the  Roman  civilization 
had  made  little  impression  on  any  but  the  townsfolk,  and 
the  material  civilization  of  the  island  was  yet  more  back- 
ward than  its  social.  Its  natural  defences  threw  obstacles 


30 


HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


577- 
796. 


With- 
drawal 
of  the, 
Britons. 


CHAP.  II.  in  its  invaders'  way.  In  the  forest  belts  which  stretched 
over  vast  spaces  of  country  they  found  barriers  which  in 
all  cases  checked  their  advance  and  in  some  cases  finally 
stopped  it.  The  Kentishme'n  and  the  South  Saxons  were 
brought  utterly  to  a  standstill  by  the  Andredsweald.  The 
East  Saxons  could  never  pierce  the  woods  of  their  western 
border.  The  Pens  proved  impassable  to  the  Northfolk  and 
the  Southfolk  of  East-Anglia.  It  was  only  after  a  long  and 
terrible  struggle  that  the  West-Saxons  could  hew  their  way 
through  the  forests  which  sheltered  the  "  Gwerit "  of  the 
southern  coast.  Their  attempt  to  break  out  of  the  circle  of 
woodland  which  girt  in  the  downs  was  in  fact  fruitless  for 
thirty  years ;  and  in  the  height  of  their  later  power  they 
were  thrown  back  from  the  forests  of  Cheshire. 

It  is  only  by  realizing  in  this  way  the  physical  as  well  as 
the  moral  circumstances  of  Britain  that  we  can  understand 
the  character  of  its  earlier  conquest.  Field  by  field,  town 
by  town,  forest  by  forest,  the  land  was  won.  And  as  each 
bit  of  ground  was  torn  away  by  the  stranger,  the  Briton 
sullenly  withdrew  from  it  only  to  turn  doggedly  and  fight 
for  the  next.  There  is  no  need  to  believe  that  the  clearing 
of  the  land  meant  so  impossible  a  thing  as  the  general 
slaughter  of  the  men  who  held  it.  Slaughter  there  was, 
no  doubt,  on  the  battle-field  or  in  towns  like  Anderida 
whose  resistance  woke  wrath  in  their  besiegers.  But  for 
the  most  part  the  Britons  were  not  slaughtered  ;  they  were 
defeated  and  drew  back.  Such  a  withdrawal  was  only 
made  possible  by  the  slowness  of  the  conquest.  For  it  is 
not  .only  the  stoutness  of  its  defence  which  distinguishes 
the  conquest  of  Britain  from  that  of  the  other  provinces  of 
the  Empire,  but  the  weakness  of  attack.  As  the  resistance 
of  the  Britons  was  greater  than  that  of  the  other  pro- 
vincials of  Rome  so  the  forces  of  their  assailants  were 
less.  Attack  by  sea  was  less  easy  than  attack  by  land, 
and  the  numbers  who  were  brought  across  by  the  boats 
of  Hengest  or  Cerdic  cannot  have  rivalled  those  which 
followed  Theodoric  or  Chlodewig  across  the  Alps  or  the 


I.]  EAKLY  ENGLAND.     449-1071.  31 

lihirie.     Landing  in  small  parties,  and  but  gradually  rein-    CHAP.  II. 
forced  by  after- comers,  the  English  invaders  could  only        ^ 
slowly  and  fitfully  push  the  Britons  back.     The  absence  of  Kingdoms 
any  joint  action  among  the  assailants  told  in  the  same  way.       $^_ 
Though  all  spoke  the  same  language  and  used  the  same      796- 
laws,  they  had  no  such  bond  of   political  union  as  the 
Franks ;  and  though  all  were  bent  on  winning  the  same 
land,   each    band   and    each    leader   preferred   their   own 
separate  course  of  action  to  any  collective  enterprize. 

Under  such  conditions  the  overrunning  of  Britain  The 
could  not  fail  to  be  a  very  different  matter  from  the  English 
rapid  and  easy  overrunning  of  such  countries  as  Gaul. 
How  slow  the  work  of  English  conquest  was  may  be  seen 
from  the  fact  that  it  took  nearly  thirty  years  to  win  Kent 
alone  and  sixty  to  complete  the  conquest  of  Southern 
Britain,  and  that  the  conquest  of  the  bulk  of  the  island 
was -only  wrought  out  after  two  centuries  of  bitter  warfare. 
But  it  was  just  through  the  length  of  the  struggle 
that  of  all  the  German  conquests  this  proved  the  most 
thorough  and  complete.  So  far  as  the  English  sword  in 
these  earlier  days  had  reached,  Britain  had  become  England, 
a  land,  that  is,  not  of  Britons  but  of  Englishmen.  Even 
if  a  few  of  the  vanquished  people  lingered  as  slaves  round 
the  homesteads  of  their  English  conquerors,  or  a  few  of 
their  household  words  mingled  with  the  English  tongue, 
doubtful  exceptions  such  as  these  leave  the  main  facts 
untouched.  The  keynote  of  the  conquest  was  firmly  struck. 
When  the  English  invasion  was  stayed  for  a  while  by  the 
civil  wars  of  the  invaders,  the  Briton  had  disappeared  from 
the  greater  part  of  the  land  which  had  been  his  own ;  and 
the  tonguexthe  religion,  the  laMrs  of  his  English  conquerors, 
reigned  without  a  break  from  Essex  to  Staffordshire  and 
from  the  British  Channel  to  the  Firth  of  Forth. 

For  the  driving  out  of  the  Briton  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
but  a  prelude  to  the  settlement  of  his  conqueror.  What 
strikes  us  at  once  in  the  new  England  is  this,  that  it  was 
the  one  purely  German  nation  that  rose  upon  the  wreck  of 


32  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.    Rome.     In  other  lands,  in  Spain  or  Gaul  or  Italy,  though 
^       they  were  equally  conquered  by  German  peoples,  religion, 


social  life,    administrative    order,  still   remained    Eoman. 
Kingdoms. 

-—  _       Britain  was  almost  the  only  province  of  the  Empire  where 

796-  Eome  died  into  a  vague  tradition  of  the  past.  The  whole 
organization  of  government  and  society  disappeared  with 
the  people  who  used  it.  Eoman  roads  indeed  still  led  to 
desolate  cities.  Eoman  camps  still  crowned  hill  and  down. 
The  old  divisions  of  the  land  remained  to  furnish  bounds 
of  field  and  farm  for  the  new  settlers.  The  Eoman  church, 
the  Eoman  country-house,  was  left  standing,  though  reft 
of  priest  and  lord.  But  Eome  was  gone.  The  mosaics, 
the  coins  which  we  dig  up  in  our  fields  are  no  relics  of  our 
English  fathers,  but  of  a  world  which  our  fathers'  sword 
swept  utterly  away.  Its  law,  its  literature,  its  manners, 
its  faith,  went  with  it.  Nothing  was  a  stronger  proof  of 
the  completeness  of  this  destruction  of  all  Eoman  life  than 
the  religious  change  which  passed  over  the  land.  Alone 
among  the  German  assailants  of  Eome  the  English  stood 
aloof  from  the  faith  of  the  Empire  they  helped  to  overthrow. 
The  new  England  was  a  heathen  country.  Homestead  and 
boundary,  the  very  days  of  the  week,  bore  the  names  of 
new  gods  who  displaced  Christ. 

As  we  stand  amidst  the  ruins  of  town  or  country-house 
which  recall  to  us  the  wealth  and  culture  of  Eoman 
Britain,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  a  conquest  which 
left  them  heaps  of  crumbling  stones  was  other  than 
a  curse  to  the  land  over  which  it  passed.  But  if  the 
new  England  which  sprang  from  the  wreck  of  Britain 
seemed  for  the  moment  a  wraste  from  which  the  arts, 
the  letters,  the  refinement  of  the  world  had  fled  hope- 
lessly away,  it  contained  within  itself  germs  of  a  nobler 
life  than  that  which  had  been  destroyed.  The  base 
of  Eoman  society  here  as  everywhere  throughout  the 
Eoman  world  was  the  slave,  the  peasant  who  had 
been  crushed  by  tyranny,  political  and  social,  into  serf- 
dom. The  base  of  the  new  English  society  was  the 


r.j  EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071.  33 

freeman  whom  we  have  seen  tilling,  judging,  or  fighting  CHAP.  II. 
for  himself  by  the  Northern  Sea.  However  roughly  he 
dealt  with  the  material  civilization  of  Britain  while  the 
struggle  went  on,  it  was  impossible  that  such  a  man  could  s?7- 
be  a  mere  destroyer.  War  in  fact  was  no  sooner  over 
than  the  warrior  settled  down  into  the  farmer,  and  the 
home  of  the  ceorl  rose  beside  the  heap  of  goblin-haunted 
stones  that  marked  the  site  of  the  villa  he  had  burned. 
The  settlement  of  the  English  in  the  conquered  land 
was  nothing  less  than  an  absolute  transfer  of  English 
society  in  its  cornpletest  form  to  the  soil  of  Britain.  The 
slowness  of  their  advance,  the  small  numbers  of  each 
separate  band  in  its  descent  upon  the  coast,  made  it 
possible  for  the  invaders  to  bring  with  them,  or  to  call  to 
them  when  their  work  was  done,  the  wives  and  children, 
the  Iset  and  slave,  even  the  cattle  they  had  left  behind 
them.  The  first  wave  of  conquest  was  but  the  prelude  to 
the  gradual  migration  of  a  whole  people.  It  was  Eng- 
land which  settled  down  on  British  soil,  England  with 
its  own  language,  its  own  laws,  its  complete  social  fabric, 
its  system  of  village  life  and  village  culture,  its  town- 
ship and  its  hundred,  its  principle  of  kinship,  its 
principle  of  representation.  It  was  not  as  mere  pirates 
or  stray  war-bands,  but  as  peoples  already  made,  and 
fitted  by  a  common  temper  and  common  customs  to  draw 
together  into  our  English  nation  in  the  days  to  come,  that 
our  fathers  left  their  German  home-land  for  the  land  in 
which  we  live.  Their  social  and  political  organization  re- 
mained radically  unchanged.  In  each  of  the  little  king- 
doms which  rose  on  the  wreck  of  Britain  the  host  camped  on 
the  land  it  had  Avon,  and  the  divisions  of  the  host  supplied 
here  as  in  its  older  home  the  rough  croundwork  of  local 

o         o 

distribution.  The  land  occupied  by  the  hundred  warriors 
who  formed  the  unit  of  military  organization  became  perhaps 
the  local  hundred  ;  but  it  is  needless  to  attach  any  notion 
of  precise  uniformity,  either  in  the  number  of  settlers  or  in 
the  area  of  their  settlement,  to  such  a  process  as  this,  any 


34  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  more  than  to  the  army  organization  which  the  process  of 
^  distribution  reflected.  From  the  large  amount  of  public  land 
Kingdoms,  which  we  find  existing  afterwards  it  has  been  conjectured 
577_  with  some  probability  that  the  number  of  settlers  was  far  too 
7—'  small  to  occupy  the  whole  of  the  country  at  their  disposal, 
and  this  unoccupied  ground  became  "  folk-land,"  the  com- 
mon property  of  the  tribe  as  at  a  later  time  of  the  nation. 
What  ground  was  actually  occupied  may  have  been  as- 
signed to  each  group  and  each  family  in  the  group  by  lot, 
and  Eorl  and  Ceorl  gathered  round  them  their  Iset  and  slave 
as  in  their  homeland  by  the  Ehine  or  the  Elbe.  And 
with  the  English  people  passed  to  the  shores  of  Britain 
all  that  was  to  make  Englishmen  what  they  are.  For 
distant  and  dim  as  their  life  in  that  older  England  may 
have  seemed  to  us,  the  whole  after-life  of  Englishmen  was 
there.  In  its  village-moots  lay  our  Parliament ;  in  the 
gleeman  of  its  village-feasts  our  Chaucer  and  our  Shak- 
spere  ;  in  the  pirate-bark  stealing  from  creek  to  creek  our 
Drakes  and  our  Nelsons.  Even  the  national  temper  was 
fully  formed.  Civilization,  letters,  science,  religion  itself, 
have  done  little  to  change  the  inner  mood  of  Englishmen. 
That  love  of  venture  and  of  toil,  of  the  sea  and  the  fight, 
that  trust  in  manhood  and  the  might  of  man,  that  silent 
awe  of  the  mysteries  of  life  and  death  which  lay  deep  in 
English  souls  then  as  now,  passed  with  Englishmen  to 
the  land  which  Englishmen  had  won. 

The  j^t  though  English  society  passed  thus  in  its  complete- 

ness to  the  soil  of  Britain  its  primitive  organization  was 
affected  in  more  ways  than  one  by  the  transfer.  In  the  first 
place  conquest  begat  the  King.  It  seems  probable  that 
the  English  had  hitherto  known  nothing  of  Kings  in  their 
own  fatherland,  where  each  tribe  was  satisfied  in  peace 
time  with  the  customary  government  of  village-reeve  and 
hundred-reeve  and  Ealdorman,  while  it  gathered  at  fighting 
times  under  war  leaders  whom  it  chose  for  each  campaign. 
But  in  the  long  and  obstinate  warfare  which  they  waged 
against  the  Britons  it  was  needful  to  find  a  common  leader 


z.J  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  35 

whom  the  various  tribes  engaged  in  conquests  such  as  those  CHAP.  li. 
of  Wessex  or  Mercia  might  follow;  and  the  ceaseless  ^ 
character  of  a  struggle  which  left  few  intervals  of  rest  or  siifJ^onL 
peace  raised  these  leaders  into  a  higher  position  than  that  577- 
of  temporary  chieftains.  It  was  no  doubt  from  this  cause 
that  wre  find  Hengest  and  his  son  ^Esc  raised  to  the  kingdom 
in  Kent,  or  ^Elle  in  Sussex,  or  Cerdic  and  Cynric  among 
the  West  Saxons.  The  association  of  son  with  father  in 
this  new  kingship  marked  the  hereditary  character  which 
distinguished  it  from  the  temporary  office  of  an  Ealdornian. 
The  change  was  undoubtedly  a  great  one,  but  it  was  less 
than  the  modern  conception  of  kingship  would  lead  us  to 
imagine.  Hereditary  as  the  succession  was  within  a  single 
house,  each  successive  King  was  still  the  free  choice  of  his 
people, and  for  centuries  to  come  it  was  held  within  a  people's 
right  to  pass  over  a  claimant  too  weak  or  too  wicked  for 
the  throne.  In  war  indeed  the  King  wras  supreme.  But  in 
peace  his  power  was  narrowly  bounded  by  the  customs  of 
his  people  and  the  rede  of  his  wise  men.  Justice  was  not 
as  yet  the  King's  justice,  it  was  the  justice  of  village  and 
hundred  and  folk  in  town-moot  and  hundred-moot  and  folk- 
moot.  It  was  only  with  the  assent  of  the  wise  men  that 
the  King  could  make  laws  and  declare  war  and  assign  public 
lands  and  name  public  officers.  Above  all,  should  his  will 
be  to  break  through  the  free  customs  of  his  people,  he  was 
without  the  means  of  putting  his  will  into  action,  for  the 
one  force  he  could  call  on  was  the  host,  and  the  host  was 
the  people  itself  in  arms. 

With  the  new  English  King  rose  a  new  order  of  English 
nobles.  The  social  distinction  of  the  Eorl  was  founded 
on  the  peculiar  purity  of  his  blood,  on  his  long  descent 
from  the  original  settler  around  whom  township  and  thorpe 
grew  up.  A  new  distinction  was  now  to  be  found  in 
service  done  to  the  King.  From  the  earliest  times  of 
German  society  it  had  been  the  wont  of  young  men 
greedy  of  honour  or  seeking  training  in  arms  to  bind 
themselves  as  "  comrades  "  to  king  or  chief.  The  leader 


86 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         fBOOii 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

English 
Kingdoms' 

577- 
796. 


whom  they  chose  gave  them  horses,  arms,  a  seat  in  his 
mead  hall,  and  gifts  from  his  hoard.  The  "  comrade  "  on  the 
other  hand — the  gesith  or  thegn,  as  he  was  called — bound 
himself  to  follow  and  fight  for  his  lord.  The  principle  of  per- 
"sonal  dependence  as  distinguished  from  the  warrior's  general 
duty  to  the  folk  at  large  was  embodied  in  the  thegn. 
"  Chieftains  fight  for  victory,"  says  Tacitus  ;  "  comrades  for 
their  chieftain."  When  one  of  Beowulf's  "  comrades  "  saw 
his  lord  hard  bested  "  he  minded  him  of  the  homestead 
he  had  given  him,  of  the  folk  right  he  gave  him  as  his 
father  had  it ;  nor  might  he  hold  back  then."  Snatching 
up  sword  and  shield  lie  called  on  his  fellow-thegns  to 
follow  him  to  the  fight.  "  I  mind  me  of  the  day,"  he  cried, 
''  when  we  drank  the  mead,  the  day  we  gave  pledge  to  our 
lord  in  the  beer  hall  as  he  gave  us  these  rings,  our  pledge 
that  we  would  pay  him  back  our  war-gear,  our  helms  and 
our  hard  swords,  if  need  befel  him.  Unmeet  is  it,  me- 
thinks,  that  we  should  bear  «back  our  shields  to  our  home 
unless  we  guard  our  lord's  life."  The  larger  the  band  of  such 
"  comrades,"  the  more  power  and  repute  it  gave  their  lord. 
It  was  from  among  the  chiefs  whose  war-band  was  strongest 
that  the  leaders  of  the  host  were  commonly  chosen ;  and  as 
these  leaders  grew  into  kings,  the  number  of  their  thegns 
naturally  increased.  The  rank  of  the  "  comrades  "  too 
rose  with  the  rise  of  their  lord.  The  king's  thegns  were 
his  body-guard,  the  one  force  ever  ready  to  carry  out  his 
will.  They  were  his  nearest  and  most  constant  counsellors. 
As  the  gathering  of  petty  tribes  into  larger  kingdoms 
swelled  the  number  of  eorls  in  each  realm  and  in  a  cor- 
responding degree  diminished  their  social  importance,  it 
raised  in  equal  measure  the  rank  of  the  king's  thegns.  A 
post  among  them  was  soon  coveted  and  won  by  the  greatest 
and  noblest  in  the  land.  Their  service  was  rewarded  by 
exemption  from  the  general  jurisdiction  of  hundred-court 
or  shire-court,  for  it  was  part  of  a  thegn's  meed  for  his 
service  that  he  should  be  judged  only  by  the  lord  he  served. 
Other  meed  was  found  in  grants  of  public  land  which  made 


i.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


37 


577- 
796' 


The  Her 


them  a  local  nobility,  no  longer  bound  to  actual  service    CHAP.  II 
in  the  king's  household  or  the  king's  war-band,  but  still       f^ 
bound  to  him  by  personal  ties  of  allegiance  far  closer  than 
those  which  bound  an  eorl  to  the  chosen  war-leacler  of  the 
tribe.     In  a   word,  thegnhood  contained  within  itself  the 
germ  of  that  later  feudalism  which  was  to  battle  so  fiercely 
with  the  Teutonic  freedom  out  of  which  it  grew. 

But  the  strife  between  the  conquering  tribes  which  at 
once  followed  on  their  conquest  of  Britain  was  to  bring 
about  changes  even  more  momentous  in  the  developement 
of  the  English  people.  While  Jute  and  Saxon  and  Engle 
were  making  themselves  masters  of  central  and  southern 
Britain,  the  English  who  had  landed  on  its  northernmost 
shores  had  been  slowly  winning  for  themselves  the  coast 
district  between  the  Forth  and  the  Tyne  which  bore  the 
name  of  Bernicia.  Their  progress  seems  to  have  been 
small  till  they  were  gathered  into  a  kingdom  in  547  by 
Ida  the  "  Flame-bearer  "  who  found  a  site  for  his  King's 
town  on  the  impregnable  rock  of  Bamborough  ;  nor  was  it 
till  the  reign  of  his  fourth  son  ^thelric  that  they  gained 
full  mastery  over  the  Britons  along  their  western  border. 
But  once  masters  of  the  Britons  the  Bernician  Englishmen 
turned  to  conquer  their  English  neighbours  to  the  south, 
the  men  of  Deira,  whose  first  King  /Ella  was  now  sinking 
to  the  grave.  The  struggle  filled  the  foreign  markets  with 
English  slaves,  and-  one  of  the  most  memorable  stories  in 
our  history  shows  us  a  group  of  such  captives  as  they 
stood  in  the  market-place  of  Eome,  it  may  be  in  the 
great  Forum  of  Trajan  which  still  in  its  decay  recalled 
the  glories  of  the  Imperial  City.  Their  white  bodies,  their 
fair  faces,  their  golden  hair  was  noted  by  a  deacon  who 
passed  by.  "  From  what  country  do  these  slaves  come  ?  " 
Gregory  asked  the  trader  who  brought  them.  The  slave- 
dealer  answered  "  They  are  English,"  or  as  the  word  ran 
in  the  Latin  form  it  would  bear  at  Eome  "they  are 
Angles."  The  deacon's  pity  veiled  itself  in  poetic  humour. 
"  Not  Angles  but  Angels  "  he  said,  "  with  faces  so  angel- 

VOL.  I.—  4 


38  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.   like  !     From  what   country  come  they  ? "     "  They  come  " 

f^,        said   the  merchant  "  from   Deira."     "  De  ird  !  "    was  the 

K^mfdoiis    untranslatable  word-play  of  the  vivacious  Boman — "  aye, 

577-      plucked   from   God's   ire  and  called   to    Christ's   mercy  i 

796.      ^d  what  is  the  name  of  their  king  ? "     They  told  him 

"  yElla,"  and  Gregory  seized  on  the  word  as  of  good  omen. 

"Alleluia   shall   be   sung   in  ^Ella's    land,"   he  said,  and 

passed  on,  musing  how  the  angel-faces  should  be  brought 

to  sing  it. 

While  Gregory  was  thus  playing  with  ^Ella's  name  the 
old  King  passed  away,  and  with  his  death  in  589  the 
resistance  of  his  kingdom  seems  to  have  ceased.  His 
house  fled  over  the  western  border  to  find  refuge  among 
the  Welsh,  and  JEthelric  of  Bernicia  entered  Deira  in 
triumph.  A  new  age  of  our  history  opens  in  this  sub- 
mission of  one  English  people  to  another.  When  the  two 
kingdoms  were  united  under  a  common  lord  the  period  of 
national  formation  began.  If  a  new  England  sprang  out 
of  the  mass  of  English  states  which  covered  Britain  after 
its  conquest,  we  owe  it  to  the  gradual  submission  of  the 
smaller  peoples  to  the  supremacy  of  a  common  political 
head.  The  difference  in  power  between  state  and  state 
which  inevitably  led  to  this  process  of  union  was  due  to 
the  character  which  the  conquest  of  Britain  was  now 
assuming.  Up  to  this  time  all  the  kingdoms  which  had 
been  established  by  the  invaders  had  stood  in  the  main  on 
a  footing  of  equality.  All  had  taken  an  independent 
share  in  the  work  of  conquest.  Though  the  oneness  of  a 
common  blood  and  a  common  speech  was  recognized  by 
all  we  find  no  traces  of  any  common  action  or  common 
rule.  Even  in  the  two  groups  of  kingdoms,  the  five 
English  and  the  five  Saxon  kingdoms,  which  occupied 
Britain  south  of  the  Humber,  the  relations  of  each  member 
of  the  group  to  its  fellows  seem  to  have  been  merely 
local.  It  was  only  locally  that  East  and  West  and  South 
and  North  English  were  grouped  round  the  Middle  Eng- 
lish of  Leicester,  or  East  and  West  and  South  and  North 


I.]  EAELY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  39 

Saxons  round  the  Middle  Saxons  about  London.  In  CHAP. 
neither  instance  do  we  find  any  real  trace  of  a  confederacy, 
or  of  the  rule  of  one  member  of  the  group  over  the 
others  ;  while  north  of  the  Humber  the  feeling  between 
the  Englishmen  of  Yorkshire  and  the  Englishmen  who  796i 
had  settled  towards  the  Firth  of  Forth  was  one  of  hostility 
rather  than  of  friendship.  But  this  age  of  isolation,  of 
equality,  of  independence,  had  now  come  to  an  end.  The 
progress  of  the  conquest  had  drawn  a  sharp  line  between 
the  kingdoms  of  the  conquerors.  The  work  of  half  of 
them  was  done.  In  the  south  of  the  island  not  only  Kent 
but  Sussex,  Essex,  and  Middlesex  were  surrounded  by 
English  territory,  and  hindered  by  that  single  fact  from  all 
further  growth.  The  same  fate  had  befallen  the  East 
Engle,  the  South  Engle,  the  Middle  and  the  North 
Engle.  The  West  Saxons  on  the  other  hand  and  the 
West  Engle,  or  Mercians,  still  remained  free  to  conquer 
and  expand  on  the  south  of  the  Humber,  as  the  English- 
men of  Deira  and  Bernicia  remained  free  to  the  north 
of  that  river.  It  wras  plain  therefore  that  from  this 
moment  the  growth  of  these  powers  would  throw  their 
fellow  kingdoms  into  the  background,  and  that  with  tin 
ever-growing  inequality  of  strength  must  come  a  new 
arrangement  of  political  forces.  The  greater  kingdoms 
would  in  the  end  be  drawn  to  subject  and  absorb  the 
lesser  ones,  and  to  the  war  between  Englishman  and 
Briton  would  be  added  a  struggle  between  Englishman 
and  Englishman. 

It  was  through  this  struggle  and  the  establishment  of  Kent. 
a  lordship  on  the  part  of  the  stronger  and  growing  states 
over  their  weaker  and  stationary  fellows  that  the  English 
kingdoms  were  to  make  their  first  step  towards  union  in 
a  single  England.  Such  an  overlordship  seemed  destined 
but  a  few  years  before  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  Wessex.  The 
victories  of  Ceawlin  and  Cuthwulf  left  it  the  largest  of 
the  English  kingdoms.  None  of  its  fellow  states  seemed 
able  to  hold  their  own  against  a  power  which  stretched 


'40  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHIP.  II.  from  the  Chil  terns  to  the  Severn  and  from  the  Channel  to 
the  Ouse.     But  after  its  defeat  in  the  inarch  upon  Chester 


English     Weissex  suddenly  broke    down   into   a   chaos  of  warring 
^j_  '  tribes  ;  and  her  place  was  taken  by  two  powers  whose  rise 
796.       f.0    oreatness   was  as   sudden  as   her   fall.     The   first   of 
these  was  Kent.     The  Kentish  King   JEthelberht  found 
himself  hemmed  in  on  every   side  by  English  territory  ; 
and  since  conquest  over  Britons  was  denied  him  he  sought 
a  new  sphere  of  action  in  setting  his  kingdom  at  the  head 
of  the  conquerors  of  the  south.     The  break  up  of  Wessex 
no  doubt  aided  his  attempt  ;  but  we   know  little  of  the 
causes  or  events  which  brought  about  his  success.  "We  know 
only  that  the  supremacy  of  the  Kentish  King  was  owned 
at  last  by  the  English  peoples  of  the  east  and  centre  of 
Britain.     But  it  was  not  by  her  political  action  that  Kent 
was  in  the  end  to  further  the  creation  of  a  single  England  ; 
for  the  lordship  which  ^Ethelberht  built  up  was  doomed  to 
fall  for  ever  with  his  death,  and  yet  his  death  left  Kent 
the  centre  of  a  national  union  far  wider  as  it  was  far  more 
enduring  than  the  petty  lordship  which   stretched  over 
Eastern  Britain.      Years   had  passed  by  since   Gregory 
pitied  the  English  slaves  in  the  market-place  of  Rome. 
As  Bishop  of  the  Imperial  City  he  at  last  found  himself 
in  a  position  to  carry  out  his  dream  of  winning  Britain  to 
the  faith,  and  an  opening  was  given  him  by  ^Ethelberht's 
marriage  with  Bercta,  a  daughter  of  the  Frankish  King 
Charibert  of  Paris.     Bercta  like  her  Frankish  kindred  was 
a  Christian;   a  Christian   Bishop  accompanied  her  from 
Gaul;     and   a   ruined   Christian    church,   the    church  of 
St.  Martin  beside  the  royal  city  of  Canterbury,  was  given 
them  for  their  worship.     The  King  himself  remained  true 
to  the  gods  of  his  fathers  ;   but  his  marriage  no  doubt  en- 
couraged Gregoiy  to  send  a  Roman  abbot,  Augustine,  at 
the  head  of  a  band  of  monks  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the 
English  people.     The  missionaries  landed  in  597  in  the 
Isle  of  Thanet,  at  the  spot  where  Hengest   had  landed 
more  than  a  century  before  ;   and   JEthelberht  received 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


41 


577- 
796' 


them  sitting  in  the  open  air  on  the  chalk-down  above  CHAP.  II. 
Minster  where  the  eye  now-a-days  catches  miles  away  ^ 
over  the  marshes  the  dim  tower  of  Canterbury.  The 
King  listened  patiently  to  the  long  sermon  of  Augustine  as 
the  interpreters  the  abbot  had  brought  with  him  from 
Gaul  rendered  it  in  the  English  tongue.  "  Your  words 
are  fair,"  jEthelberht  replied  at  last  with  English  good 
sense,  "  but  they  are  new  and  of  doubtful  meaning."  For 
himself,  he  said,  he  refused  to  forsake  the  gods  of  his 
fathers,  but  with  the  usual  religious  tolerance  of  the 
German  race  he  promised  shelter  and  protection  to  the 
strangers.  The  band  of  monks  entered  Canterbury  bear- 
ing before  them  a  silver  cross  with  a  picture  of  Christ, 
and  singing  in  concert  the  strains  of  the  litany  of  their 
Church.  "  Turn  from  this  city,  0  Lord,"  they  sang 
"  Thine  anger  and  wrath,  and  turn  it  from  Thy  holy  house, 
for  we  have  sinned."  And  then  in  strange  contrast  came 
the  jubilant  cry  of  the  older  Hebrew  worship,  the  cry 
which  Gregory  had  wrested  in  prophetic  earnestness  from 
the  name  of  the  Yorkshire  king  in  the  Eoman  market- 
place, "  Alleluia  !  " 

It  was  thus  that  the  spot  which  witnessed  the  landing  Christian 
of  Hengest  became  yet  better  known  as  the  landing-place  En9lan^- 
of  Augustine.  But  the  second  landing  at  Ebbsfleet  was 
in  no  small  measure  a  reversal  and  undoing  of  the  first. 
"  Strangers  from  Rome  "  was  the  title  with  which  the 
missionaries  first  fronted  the  English  king.  The  march  of 
the  monks  as  they  chaunted  their  solemn  litany  was  in  one 
sense  a  return  of  the  Roman  legions  who  withdrew  at  the 
trumpet-call  of  Alaric.  It  was  to  the  tongue  and  the 
thought  not  of  Gregory  only  but  of  the  men  whom  his 
Jutish  fathers  had  slaughtered  or  driven  out  that  ^Ethel- 
berht  listened  in  the  preaching  of  Augustine.  Canterbury, 
the  earliest  royal  city  of  German  England,  became  a 
centre  of  Latin  influence.  The  Roman  tongue  became 
again  one  of  the  tongues  of  Britain,  the  language  of  its 
worship,  its  correspondence,  its  literature.  But  more  than 


42 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

English 
Kingdoms. 

577- 
796. 


^Ethel- 
frith. 


the  tongue  of  Rome  returned  with  Augustine.  Practically 
his  landing  renewed  that  union  with  the  Western  world 
which  the  landing  of  Hengest  had  destroyed.  The  new 
England  was  admitted  into  the  older  commonwealth  of 
nations.  The  civilization,  art,  letters,  which  had  fled 
before  the  sword  of  the  English  conquerors  returned  with 
the  Christian  faith.  The  great  fabric  of  the  Roman  law 
indeed  never  took  root  in  England,  but  it  is  impossible 
not  to  recognize  the  result  of  the  influence  of  the  Roman 
missionaries  in  the  fact  that  codes  of  the  customary 
English  law  began  to  be  put  in  writing  soon  after  their 
arrival. 

A  year  passed  before  ^Ethelberht  yielded  to  the  preaching 
of  Augustine.  But  from  the  moment  of  his  conversion  the 
new  faith  advanced  rapidly  and  the  Kentish  men  crowded 
to  baptism  in  the  train  of  their  king.  The  new  religion 
was  carried  beyond  the  bounds  of  Kent  by  the  supremacy 
which  ^Ethelberht  wielded  over  the  neighbouring  kingdoms. 
Sseberht,  King  of  the  East-Saxons,  received  a  bishop  sent 
from  Kent,  and  suffered  him  to  build  up  again  a  Christian 
church  in  what  was  now  his  subject  city  of  London,  while 
the  East- Anglian  King  Rsedwald  resolved  to  serve  Christ 
and  the  older  gods  together.  But  while  .ZEthelberht  was 
thus  furnishing  a  future  centre  of  spiritual  unity  in  Canter- 
bury, the  see  to  which  Augustine  was  consecrated,  the 
growth  of  Northumbria  was  pointing  it  out  as  the  coming 
political  centre  of  the  new  England.  In  593,  four  years 
before  the  landing  of  the  missionaries  in  Kent,  yEthelric 
was  succeeded  by  his  son  ^Ethelfrith,  and  the  new  king 
took  up  the  work  of  conquest  with  a  vigour  greater  than 
had  yet  been  shown  by  any  English  leader.  For  ten  years 
he  waged  war  with  the  Britons  of  Strathclyde,  a  tract 
which  stretched  along  his  western  border  from  Dum- 
barton to  Carlisle.  The  contest  ended  in  a  great  battle 
at  Dregsa's  Stan,  perhaps  Dawston  in  Liddesdale  ; 
and  .^Ethelfrith  turned  to  deliver  a  yet  more  crushing 
blow  on  his  southern  border.  British  kingdoms  still 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071.  43 

stretched   from   Clyde-mouth   to  the  mouth    of    Severn ;    CHAP.  II. 
and  had  their  line  remained  unbroken  the  British  resist-        T^C 
ance  might  yet  have  withstood  the  English  advance.     It  Kingdoms 
was  with  a  sound  political  instinct  therefore  that  ^Ethel-       577- 
frith  marched  in  607  upon  Chester,  the  point  where  the 
kingdom  of  Cumbria,  a  kingdom  which  stretched  from  the 
Lime  to  the  Dee,  linked   itself  to  the   British   states   of 
what  we  now  call  Wales.     Hard  by  the  city  two  thousand 
monks  were  gathered  in  one  of  those  vast  religious  settle- 
ments which  were  characteristic  of  Celtic  Christianity,  and 
after  a  three  days'  fast  a  crowd  of  these  ascetics  followed 
the  British  army  to  the  field.    ^Ethelfrith  watched  the  wild 
gestures  of  the  monks  as  they  stood  apart  from  the  host 
with  arms  outstretched  in  prayer,  and  bade  his  rneu  slay 
them  in  the  coming  fight.     <:  Bear  they  arms  or  no,"  said 
the  King,  "  they  war  against  us  when  they  cry  against  us 
to  their  God,"  and  in  the  surprise  and  rout  which  followed 
the  monks  were  the  first  to  fall. 

With  the  battle  of  Ciiester  Britain,  as  a  single  political 
body,  ceased  to  exist.  By  their  victory  at  Deorham  the 
West-Saxons  had  cut  off  the  Britons  of  Dorset,  Somerset, 
Devon,  and  Cornwall  from  the  general  body  of  their  race. 
By  ^Ethelfrith's  victory  at  Chester  and  the  reduction  of 
southern  Lancashire  which  followed  it  what  remained  of 
Britain  was  broken  into  two  several  parts.  From  this 
time  therefore  the  character  of  the  English  conquest  of 
Britain  changes.  The  warfare  of  Briton  and  Englishman 
died  down  into  a  warfare  of  separate  English  kingdoms 
against  separate  •  British  kingdoms,  of  North umbria  against 
Cumbria  and  Strathclyde,  of  Mercia  against  modern 
Wales,  of  Wessex  against  the  tract  of  British  country 
from  Mendip  to  the  Land's  End.  But  great  as  was  the 
importance  of  the  battle  of  Chester  to  the  fortunes  of 
Britain,  it  was  of  still  greater  importance  to  the  fortunes 
of  England  itself.  The  drift  towards  national  unity  had 
already  begun,  but  from  the  moment  of  ^thelfrith's  vic- 
tory this  drift  became  the  main  current  of  our  history- 


44  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  Masters  of  the  larger  and  richer  part  of  the  land,  its  con- 
^  querors  were  no  longer  drawn  greedily  westward  by  the 

K?nfdoms    n°Pe  °f  plunder ;  while  the  severance  of  the  British  king- 

577-      doins  took  from  their  enemies  the  pressure  of  a  common 

7J*J?'       danger.     The  conquests  of  ^Ethelfrith  left  him  without  a 

rival  in  military  power,  and  he  turned  from  victories  over 

the  Welsh,  as  their  English  foes  called  the  Britons,  to  the 

building  up  of  a  lordship  over  his  own  countrymen. 

Eadwine.  The  power  of  JEthelberht  seems  to  have  declined  with 
old  age,  and  though  the  Essex  men  still  owned  his  supre- 
macy, the  English  tribes  of  Mid-Britain  shook  it  off. 
So  strong  however  had  the  instinct  of  union  now  become, 
that  we  hear  nothing  of  any  return  to  their  old  isolation. 
Mercians  and  Southumbrians,  Middle -English  and  South- 
English  now  owned  the  lordship  of  the  East-English  King 
Ksedwald.  The  shelter  given  by  Kaedwald  to  ^Ella's  son 
Eadwine  served  as  a  pretext  for  a  Northumbrian  attack. 
Fortune  however  deserted  ^Ethelfrith,  and  a  snatch  of 
northern  song  still  tells  of  the  day  when  the  river  Idle  by 
Eetford  saw  his  defeat  and  fall.  But  the  greatness  of 
Northumbria  survived  its  King.  In  617  Eadwine  was 
welcomed  back  by  his  own  men  of  Deira ;  and  his  conquest 
of  Bernicia  maintained  that  union  of  the  two  realms  which 
the  Bernician  conquest  of  Deira  had  first  brought  about. 
The  greatness  of  Northumbria  now  reached  its  height. 
Within  his  own  dominions,  Eadwine  displayed  a  genius 
for  civil  government  which  shews  how  utterly  the  mere 
age  of  conquest  had  passed  away.  With  him  began  the 
English  proverb  so  often  applied  to  after  kings  :  "  A  woman 
with  her  babe  might  walk  scatheless  from  sea  to  sea  in 
Eadwine's  day."  Peaceful  communication  revived  along 
the  deserted  highways ;  the  springs  by  the  roadside  were 
marked  with  stakes,  and  a  cup  of  brass  set  beside  each 
for  the  traveller's  refreshment.  Some  faint  traditions 
of  the  Eoman  past  may  have  flung  their  glory  round 
this  new  "  Empire  of  the  English ; "  a  royal  standard 
of  purple  and  gold  floated  before  Eadwine  as  he  rode 


!.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449-1071.  45 

through  the  villages ;  a  feather  tuft  attached  to  a  spear,    CHAP.  li. 
the  Roman  tufa,  preceded  him  as  he  walked  through  the       Th^ 
streets.      The  Northumbrian  king  became  in  fact  supreme  KfnJ&ms. 
over  Britain  as  no  king  of  English  blood  had  been  before.       577- 
Northward  his  frontier  reached  to  the  Firth  of  Forth,  and 
here,  if  we  trust  tradition,  Eadwine  founded  a  city  which 
bore  his  name,  Edinburgh,  Ead wine's  burgh.      To  the  west 
his  arms  crushed  the  long  resistance  of  Elmet,  the  district 
about  Leeds  ;  he  was  master  of  Chester,  and  the  fleet  he 
equipped  there  subdued  the  isles  of  Anglesea  and  Man. 
South  of  the  Humber  he  was  owned  as  overlord  by  the 
five  English  states  of  Mid- Britain.     The  West-Saxons  re- 
mained awhile   independent.     But   revolt  and   slaughter 
had  fatally  broken  their  power  when  Eadwine  attacked 
them.     A  story  preserved  by  Bseda  tells  something  of  the 
fierceness  of  the  struggle  which  ended  in  the  subjection 
of  the  south  to  the  overlordship  of  Northumbria.     In  an 
Easter-court  which  he  held  in  his  royal  city  by  the  river 
Derweut,  Eadwine  gave  audience  to  Eumer,  an  envoy  of 
Wessex,  who  brought  a  message  from  its  king.     In  the 
midst  of  the  conference  Eumer  started  to  his  feet,  drew 
a  dagger  from  his   robe,   and   rushed   on  the   Northum- 
brian sovereign.     Lilla,  one  of  the  King's  war-band,  threw 
himself  between  Eadwine  and  his  assassin ;  but  so  furious 
was  the  stroke  that  even  through  Lilla's  body  the  dagger 
still  reached  its  aim.     The  king  however  recovered  from 
his  wound  to  march  on  the  West-Saxons  ;  he  slew  or  sub- 
dued all  who  had   conspired  against  him,  and  returned 
victorious  to  his  own  country. 

Kent  had  bound  itself  to  him  by  giving  him  its  King's  Conversion 
daughter  as  a  wife,  a  step  which  probably  marked  political    Umbria. 
subordination;    and   with  the    Kentish  queen  had  come 
Paulinus,  one  of  Augustine's  followers,  whose  tall  stooping 
form,  slender  aquiline  nose,  and  black  hair  falling  round 
a  thin  worn  face,   were  long  remembered  in  the  North. 
Moved  by  his  queen's  prayers  Eadwine  promised  to  become 
Christian  if  he  returned  successful  from  Wessex  ;  and  the 


46  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  wise  men  of  Northumbria  gathered  to  deliberate  on  the 
f^  new  faith  to  which  he  bowed.  To  finer  minds  its  charm  lay 
xFnfrSoms  then  as  now  i*1  ^ie  light  it  threw  on  the  darkness  which 
^j_  encompassed  men's  lives,  the  darkness  of  the  future  as  of 
?96-  the  past.  "  So  seems  the  life  of  man,  0  king,"  burst  forth 
an  aged  Ealdorman  "  as  a  sparrow's  flight  through  the  hall 
when  a  man  is  sitting  at  meat  in  winter-tide  with  the  warm 
fire  lighted  on  the  hearth  but  the  chill  rain-storm  without. 
The  sparrow  flies  in  at  one  door  and  tarries  for  a  moment 
in  the  light  and  heat  of  the  hearth-fire,  and  then  flying 
forth  from  the  other  vanishes  into  the  wintry  darkness 
whence  it  came.  So  tarries  for  a  moment  the  life  of  man 
in  our  sight,  but  what  is  before  it,  what  after  it,  we  know 
not.  If  this  new  teaching  tell  us  aught  certainly  of  these, 
let  us  follow  it."  Coarser  argument  told  on  the  crowd. 
"  None  of  your  people,  Eadwine,  have  worshipped  the 
gods  more  busily  than  I,"  said  Coifi  the  priest,  "  yet  there 
are  many  more  favoured  and  more  fortunate.  Were  these 
gods  good  for  anything  they  would  help  their  worshippers." 
Then  leaping  on  horseback,  he  hurled  his  spear  into  the 
sacred  temple  at  Godmanham,  and  with  the  rest  of  the 
Witan  embraced  the  religion  of  the  king. 

Penda.  But  the  faith  of  Woden  and  Thunder  was  not  to  fall 
without  a  struggle.  Even  in  Kent  a  reaction  against  the 
new  creed  began  with  the  death  of  ^Ethelberht.  The 
young  Kings  of  the  East  Saxons  burst  into  the  church 
where  the  Bishop  of  London  was  administering  the 
Eucharist  to  the  people,  crying  "  Give  us  that  white 
bread  you  gave  to  our  father  Saba,"  and  on  the  bishop's 
refusal  drove  him  from  their  realm.  This  earlier  tide  of 
reaction  was  checked  by  Eadwine's  conversion ;  but  Mercia, 
which  had  as  yet  owned  the  supremacy  of  Northumbria, 
sprang  into  a  sudden  greatness  as  the  champion  of  the 
heathen  gods.  Its  King,  Penda,  saw  in  the  rally  of  the 
old  religion  a  chance  of  winning  back  his  people's  freedom 
and  giving  it  the  lead  among  the  tribes  .about  it.  Origin- 
ally mere  settlers  along  the  Upper  Trent,  the  position  of 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


47 


the  Mercians  on  the  Welsh  border  invited  them  to  widen 
their  possessions  by  conquest  while  the  rest  of  their 
Anglian  neighbours  were  shut  off  from  any  chance  of  ex- 
pansion. Their  fights  along  the  frontier  too  kept  their  war- 
like energy  at  its  height.  Penda  must  have  already  asserted 
his  superiority  over  the  four  other  English  tribes  of  Mid- 
Britain  before  he  could  have  ventured  to  attack  Wessex 
and  tear  from  it  in  628  the  country  of  the  Hwiccas  and 
Magesaetas  on  the  Severn.  Even  with  this  accession  of 
strength  however  he  was  still  no  match  for  Northumbria. 
But  the  war  of  the  English  people  with  the  Britons  seems 
at  this  moment  to  have  died  down  for  a  season,  and  the 
Mercian  ruler  boldly  broke  through  the  barrier  which  had 
parted  the  two  races  till  now  by  allying  himself  with  a 
Welsh  King,  Cadwallon,  for  a  joint  attack  on  Eadwine. 
The  armies  met  in  633  at  a  place  called  Jfethfeld,  and  in 
the  fight  which  followed  Eadwine  was  defeated  and  slain. 
Bemicia  seized  on  the  fall  of  Eadwine  to  recall  the  line 
of  ^Ethelfrith  to  its  throne ;  and  after  a  year  of  anarchy 
his  second  son,  Oswald,  became  its  King.  The  Welsh  had 
remained  encamped  in  the  heart  of  the  north,  and  Oswald's 
first  fight  was  with  Cadwallon.  A  small  Northumbrian 
force  gathered  in  635  near  the  Roman  Wall,  and  pledged 
itself  at  the  new  King's  bidding  to  become  Christian 
if  it  conquered  in  the  fight.  Cadwallon  fell  fighting 
on  the  "  Heaven's  Field,"  as  after  times  called  the 
field  of  battle ;  the  submission  of  Deira  to  the  con- 
queror restored  the  kingdom  of  Northumbria;  and  for 
nine  years  the  power  of  Oswald  equalled  that  of  Eadwine. 
It  was  not  the  Church  of  Paulinus  which  nerved  Oswald 
to  this  struggle  for  the  Cross,  or  which  carried  out  in 
Bernicia  the  work  of  conversion  which  his  victory  began. 
Paulinus  fled  from  Northumbria  at  Eadwine's  fall;  and 
the  Pioman  Church,  though  established  in  Kent,  did 
little  in  contending  elsewhere  against  the  heathen  reaction. 
Its  place  in  the  conversion  of  northern  England  was  taken 
by  missionaries  from  Ireland.  To  understand  the  true 


CHAP.  II. 
The 


577- 
796, 


Oswald, 


48  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  meaning  of  this  change  we  must  remember  how  greatly 
^  the  Christian  Church  in  the  west  had  been  affected 
Kingdoms,  by  the  German  invasion.  Before  the  landing  of  the 
^^_  English  in  Britain  the  Christian  Church  stretched  in  an 
796<  unbroken  line  across  Western  Europe  to  the  furthest 
coasts  of  Ireland.  The  conquest  of  Britain  by  the  pagan 
English  thrust  a  wedge  of  heathendom  into  the  heart  of 
this  great  communion  and  broke  it  into  two  unequal  parts. 
On  one  side  lay  Italy,  Spain,  and  Gaul,  whose  churches 
owned  obedience  to  and  remained  in  direct  contact"  with 
the  See  of  Rome,  on  the  other,  practically  cut  off  from  the 
general  body  of  Christendom,  lay  the  Church  of  Ireland. 
But  the  condition  of  the  two  portions  of  Western  Christen- 
dom was  very  different.  While  the  vigour  of  Christianity 
in  Italy  and  Gaul  and  Spain  was  exhausted  in  a  bare 
struggle  for  life,  Ireland,  which  remained  unscourged  by 
invaders,  drew  from  its  conversion  an  energy  such  as  it 
has  never  known  since.  Christianity  was  received  there 
with  a  burst  of  popular  enthusiasm,  and  letters  and 
arts  sprang  up  rapidly  in  its  train.  The  science  and 
Biblical  knowledge  which  fled  from  the  Continent  took 
refuge  in  its  schools.  The  new  Christian  life  soon 
beat  too  strongly  to  brook  confinement  within  the  bounds 
of  Ireland  itself.  Patrick,  the  first  missionary  of  the 
island,  had  not  been  half  a  century  dead  when  Irish 
Christianity  flung  itself  with  a  fiery  zeal  into  battle  with 
the  mass  of  heathenism  which  was  rolling  in  upon  the 
Christian  world.  Irish  missionaries  laboured  among  the 
Picts  of  the  Highlands  and  amon^  the  Frisians  of  the 

o  o 

northern  seas.  An  Irish  missionary,  Columban,  founded 
monasteries  in  Burgundy  and  the  Apennines.  The  canton 
of  St.  Gall  still  commemorates  in  its  name  another  Irish 
missionary  before  whom  the  spirits  of  flood  and  fell  fled 
wailing  over  the  waters  of  the  Lake  of  Constance.  For  a 
time  it  seemed  as  if  the  course  of  the  world's  history  was 
to  be  changed,  as  if  the  older  Celtic  race  that  Eoman  and 
German  had  swept  before  them  had  turned  to  the  moral 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


49 


577- 
796, 

Aidan. 


conquest  of  their  conquerors,  as  if  Celtic  and  not  Latin    CHAP.  II. 
Christianity  was  to  mould  the  destinies  of  the  Churches  of       ^"e 

fV>p  ~V\Tp«t  English 

Kingdoms. 

On  a  low  island  of  barren  gneiss-rock  off  the  west  coast 
of  Scotland  an  Irish  refugee,  Columba,  had  raised  the 
famous  mission-station  of  lona.  It  was  within  its  walls 
that  Oswald  in  youth  found  refuge,  and  on  his  accession  to 
the  throne  of  Northumbria  he  called  for  missionaries  from 
among  its  monks.  The  first  preacher  sent  in  answer  to 
his  call  obtained  little  success.  He  declared  on  his  return 
thai  among  a  people  so  stubborn  and  barbarous  as  the 
Northumbrian  folk  success  was  impossible.  "  Was  it  their 
stubbornness  or  your  severity  ? "  asked  Aidan,  a  brother 
sitting  by  ;  "  did  you  forget  God's  word  to  give  them  the 
milk  first  and  then  the  meat  ? "  All  eyes  turned  on  the 
speaker  as  fittest  to  undertake  the  abandoned  mission,  and 
Aidan  sailing  at  their  bidding  fixed  his  bishop's  see  in  the 
island-peninsula  of  Liudisfarne.  Thence,  from  a  monastery 
which  gave  to  the  spot  its  after  name  of  Holy  Island, 
preachers  poured  forth  over  the  heathen  realms.  Aidan 
himself  wandered  on  foot,  preaching  among  the  peasants 
of  Yorkshire  and  Northumbria.  In  his  own  court  the 
King  acted  as  interpreter  to  the  Irish  missionaries  in  their 
efforts  to  convert  his  thegns.  A  new  conception  of  king- 
ship indeed  began  to  blend  itself  with  that  of  the  warlike 
glory  of  jEthelfrith  or  the  wise  administration  of  Eadwine, 
and  the  moral  'power  which  was  to  reach  its  height  in 
Alfred  first  dawns  in  the  story  of  Oswald.  For  after- 
times  the  memory  of  Oswald's  greatness  was  lost  in  the 
memory  of  his  piety.  "  By  reason  of  his  constant  habit  of 
praying  or  giving  thanks  to  the  Lord  he  was  wont  wherever 
he  sat  to  hold  his  hands  upturned  on  his  knees."  As  he 
feasted  with  Bishop  Aidan  by  his  side,  the  thegn,  or  noble 
of  his  war-band,  whom  he  had  set  to  give  alms  to  the  poor 
at  his  gate  told  him  of  a  multitude  that  still  waited  fasting 
without.  The  King  at  once  bade  the  untasted  meat  before 
him  be  carried  to  the  poor,  and  his  silver  dish  be  parted 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

piecemeal  among  them.     Aidan  seized  the  royal  hand  and 
blessed  it.     "  May  this  hand,"  he  cried,  "  never  grow  old." 
Oswald's  lordship  stretched  as  widely  over  Britain  as 
577_      that  of  his  predecessor  Eadwine.     In  him  even  more  than 
79e.       jn  Eadwine  men  saw   some  faint  likeness  of  the  older 
Emperors  ;  once  indeed  a  writer  from  the  land  of  the  Picts 
calls  Oswald  "Emperor  of  the  whole   of  Britain."     His 
power  was  bent  to  carry  forward  the  conversion  of  all 
England,  but  prisoned  as  it  was  to  the  central  districts 
of  the  country  heathendom    fought  desperately  for  life. 
Penda   was    still  its   rallying-point.     His  long  reign  was 
one  continuous  battle  with  the  new  religion ;  but  it  was 
a  battle  rather  with  the  supremacy  of  Christian  North- 
umbria   than  with    the    supremacy  of  the  Cross.     East- 
Anglia  became  at  last  the  field  of  contest  between  the  two 
powers ;  and  in  642  Oswald  marched  to  deliver  it  from 
the  Mercian  rule.    But  his  doom  was  the  doom  of  Eadwine, 
and  in  a  battle  called  the  battle  of  the  Maserfeld  he  was 
overthrown  and  slain     For  a  few  years  after  his  victory  at 
the  Maserfeld,  Penda  stood  supreme  in  Britain.  Heathenism 
triumphed  with  him.     If  Wessex  did  not  own  his  over- 
lordship  as  it  had  owned  that  of  Oswald,  its  King  threw 
off  the  Christian  faith  which  he  had  embraced  but  a  few 
years  back  at  the  preaching  of  Birinus.  Even  Deira  seems  to 
have  owned  Penda's  sway.  Bernicia  alone,  though  distracted 
by  civil  war  between  rival  claimants  for  its  throne,  refused 
to  yield.     Year  by  year  the  Mercian  King  carried   his 
ravages  over  the  north ;  once  he  reached  even  the  royal 
city,  the  impregnable  rock-fortress  of  Bamborough.     De- 
spairing of  success  in  an  assault,  he  pulled    down    the 
cottages  around,  and  piling  their  wood  against  its  walls 
fired  the  mass  in  a  fair  wind  that  drove  the  flames  on 
the  town.     "See,  Lord,  what  ill  Penda  is  doing,"  cried 
Aidan  from  his  hermit  cell  in  the  islet  of  Fame,  as  he  saw 
the  smoke  drifting  over  the  city,  and  a  change  of  wind — so 
ran  the  legend  of  Northumbria's  agony — drove  back  the 
flames   on  those  who   kindled  them.      But  burned   and 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  51 

harried  as  it  was,  Bernicia  still  fought  for  the  Cross.  CHAP.  n. 
Oswiu,  a  third  sou  of  ^Ethelfrith,  held  his  ground  stoutly  fhe 
against  Penda's  inroads  till  their  cessation  enabled  him  Kingdoms, 
to  build  up  again  the  old  Northumbrian  kingdom  by  577- 
a  march  upon  Deira.  The  union  of  the  two  realms  was  7J^' 
never  henceforth  to  V  e  dissolved ;  and  its  influence  was 
at  once  seen  in  the  renewal  of  Christianity  throughout 
Britain.  East  Anglia,  conquered  as  it  was,  had  clung  to 
its  faith.  Wessex  quietly  became  Christian  again.  Penda's 
own  son,  whom  he  had  set  over  the  Middle  English, 
received  baptism  and  teachers  from  Lindisfarne.  At  last 
the  missionaries  of  the  new  belief  appeared  fearlessly 
among  the  Mercians  themselves.  Penda  gave  them  no 
hindrance.  In  words  that  mark  the  temper  of  a  man  of 
whom  we  would  willingly  know  more,  Baeda  tells  us  that 
the  old  King  only  "  hated  and  scorned  those  whom  he  saw 
not  doing  the  works  of  the  faith  they  had  received."  His 
attitude  shows  that  Penda  looked  with  the  tolerance  of  his 
race  on  all  questions  of  creed,  and  that  he  was  fighting  less 
for  heathenism  than  for  political  independence.  And  now 
the  growing  power  of  Oswiu  called  him  to  the  old  struggle 
with  Northumbria.  In  655  he  met  Oswiu  in  the  field  of 
"Winweed  by  Leeds.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Northumbrian 
sought  to  avert  Penda's  attack  by  offers  of  ornaments  and 
costly  gifts.  "  If  the  pagans  will  not  accept  them,"  Oswiu 
cried  at  last,  "  let  us  offer  them  to  One  that  will ;  "-and  he 
vowed  that  if  successful  he  would  dedicate  his  daughter  to 
Cod,  and  endow  twelve  monasteries  in  his  realm.  Victory 
at  last  declared  for  the  faith  of  Christ.  Penda  himself 
fell  on  the  field.  The  river  over  which  the  Mercians  fled 
was  swollen  with  a  great  rain ;  it  swept  away  the  frag- 
ments of  the  heathen  host,  and  the  cause  of  the  older  gods 
was  lost  for  ever. 

The  terrible  struggle  between  heathendom  and  Chris-      Oswiu. 
tianity  was  followed  by  a  long  and  profound  peace.     For 
three    years   after  the   battle  of  Winwsed   Mercia    was 
governed  by  Northumbrian  thegns  in  Oswiu's  name.    The 


52  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

LAP  II  winning  of  central  England  was  a  victory  for  Irish  Chris 
tianity  as  well  as  for  Oswiu.  Even  in  Mercia  itself  heathen- 
dom was  dead  with  Penda.  "  Being  thus  freed,"  Bseda  tells 
577  us,  "  the  Mercians  with  their  King  rejoiced  to  serve  the 
796.  true  King,  Christ."  Its  three  provinces,  the  earlier  Mercia, 
the  Middle-English,  and  the  Lindiswaras,  were  united  in 
the  bishopric  of  the  missionary  Ceadda,  the  St.  Chad  to 
whom  Lichfield  is  still  dedicated.  Ceadda  was  a  monk  of 
Lindisfarne,  so  simple  and  lowly  in  temper  that  he  travelled 
on  foot  on  his  long  mission  journeys  till  Archbishop  Theo- 
dore with  his  own  hands  lifted  him  on  horseback.  The  old 
Celtic  poetry  breaks  out  in  his  death-legend,  as  it  tells  us 
how  voices  of  singers  singing  sweetly  descended  from  heaven 
to  the  little  cell  beside  St.  Mary's  Church  where  the  bishop 
lay  dying.  Then  "  the  same  song  ascended  from  the  roof 
again,  and  returned  heavenward  by  the  way  that  it  came." 
It  was  the  soul  of  his  brother,  the  missionary  Cedd,  come 
with  a  choir  of  angels  to  solace  the  last  hours  of  Ceadda. 
'uihbert.  In  ISTorthumbria  the  work  of  his  fellow  missionaries 
has  almost  been  lost  in  the  glory  of  Cuthbert.  No 
story  better  lights  up  for  us  the  new  religious  life  of 
the  time  than  the  story  of  this  Apostle  of  the  Low- 
lands. Born  on  the  southern  edge  of  the  Lamrnermoor, 
Cuthbert  found  shelter  at  eight  years  old  in  a  widow's 
house  in  the  little  village  of  Wrangholm.  Already  in 
youth  his  robust  frame  had  a  poetic  sensibility  which 
caught  even  in  the  chance  word  of  a  game  a  call  to  higher 
things,  and  a  passing  attack  of  lameness  deepened  the 
religious  impression.  A  traveller  coming  in  his  white 
mantle  over  the  hillside  and  stopping  his  horse  to  tend 
Cuthbert's  injured  knee  seemed  to  him  an  angel.  The 
boy's  shepherd  life  carried  him  to  the  bleak  upland,  still 
famous  as  a  sheep  walk,  though  a  scant  herbage  scarce 
veils  the  whinstone  rock.  There  meteors  plunging  into 
the  night  became  to  him  a  company  of  angelic  spirits 
carrying  the  soul  of  Bishop  Aidan  heavenward,  and  his 
longings  slowly  settled  into  a  resolute  will  towards  a 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  53 

religious  life.  In  651  he  made  his  way  to  a  group  of  CHAP.  II. 
straw-thatched  log-huts  in  the  midst  of  untilled  solitudes  ^ 
where  a  few  Irish  monks  from  Lindisfarne  had  settled  in  x^loins, 
the  mission-station  of  Melrose.  To-day  the  land  is  a  land  577- 
of  poetry  and  romance.  Cheviot  and  Lammermoor,  796' 
Ettrick  and  Teviotdale,  Yarrow  and  Annan-water,  are 
musical  with  old  ballads  and  border  minstrelsy.  Agricul- 
ture has  chosen  its  valleys  for  her  favourite  seat,  and 
drainage  and  steam-power  have  turned  sedgy  marshes  into 
farm  and  meadow.  But  to  see  the  Lowlands  as  they  were 
in  Cuthbert's  day  we  must  sweep  meadow  and  farm  away 
again,  and  replace  them  by  vast  solitudes,  dotted  here  and 
there  with  clusters  of  wooden  hovels  and  crossed  by 
boggy  tracks,  over  which  travellers  rode  spear  in  hand  and 
eye  kept  cautiously  about  them.  The  Xorthumbrian  pea- 
santry among  whom  he  journeyed  were  for  the  most  part 
Christians  only  in  name.  With  Teutonic  indifference  they 
yielded  to  their  thegns  in  nominally  accepting  the  new 
Christianity  as  these  had  yielded  to  the  king.  But  they 
retained  their  old  superstitions  side  by  side  with  the  new 
worship  ;  plague  or  mishap  drove  them  back  to  a  reliance 
on  their  heathen  charms  and  amulets  ;  and  if  trouble  befell 
the  Christian  preachers  who  came  settling  among  them, 
they  took  it  as  proof  of  the  wrath  of  the  older  gods. 
When  some  log-rafts  which  were  floating  down  the  Tyne 
for  the  construction  of  an  abbey  at  its  mouth  drifted  with 
the  monks  who  were  at  work  on  them  out  to  sea,  the  rustic 
bystanders  shouted,  "  Let  nobody  pray  for  them ;  let 
nobody  pity  these  men  ;  for  they  have  taken  away  from  us 
our  old  worship,  and  how  their  new-fangled  customs  are  to 
be  kept  nobody  knows."  On  foot,  on  horseback,  Cuthbert 
wandered  among  listeners  such  as  these, '  choosing  above 
all  the  remoter  mountain  villages  from  whose  roughness 
and  poverty  other  teachers  turned  aside.  Unlike  his  Irish 
comrades,  he  needed  no  interpreter  as  he  passed  from 
village  to  village ;  the  frugal,  long-headed  Northumbrians 
listened  willingly  to  one  who  was  himself  a  peasant  of  the 

VOL.  L— 5 


54 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

English 
Kingdoms. 

577- 
796. 


Ccedmon. 


Lowlands,  and  who  had  caught  the  rough  Northumbrian 
burr  along  the  banks  of  the  Leader.  His  patience,  his 
humorous  good  sense,  the  sweetness  of  his  look,  told  for 
him,  and  not  less  the  stout  vigorous  frame  which  fitted  the 
peasant-preacher  for  the  hard  life  he  had  chosen.  "  Never 
did  man  die  of  hunger  who  served  God  faithfully,"  he 
would  say,  when  nightfall  found  them  supperless  in  the 
waste.  "  Look  at  the  eagle  overhead  !  God  can  feed  us 
through  him  if  He  will " — and  once  at  least  he  owed  his 
meal  to  a  fish  that  the  scared  bird  let  fall.  A  snowstorm 
drove  his  boat  on  the  coast  of  Fife.  "  The  snow  closes 
the  road  along  the  shore,"  mourned  his  comrades  ;  "  the 
storm  bars  our  way  oversea."  "  There  is  still  the  way  of 
heaven  that  lies  open,"  said  Cuthbert. 

While  missionaries  were  thus  labouring  among  its 
peasantry,  Northumbria  saw  the  rise  of  a  number  of 
monasteries,  not  bound  indeed  by  the  strict  ties  of  the  Bene- 
dictine rule,  but  gathered  on  the  loose  Celtic  model  of  the 
family  or  the  clan  round  some  noble  and  wealthy  person 
who  sought  devotional  retirement.  The  most  notable  and 
wealthy  of  these  houses  was  that  of  Streoneshalh,  where 
Hild,  a  woman  of  royal  race,  reared  her  abbey  on  the 
cliffs  of  Whitby,  looking  out  over  the  Northern  Sea. 
Hild  was  a  Northumbrian  Deborah  whose  counsel  was 
sought  even  by  kings  ;  and  the  double  monastery  over 
which  she  ruled  became  a  seminary  of  bishops  and 
priests.  The  sainted  John  of  Beverley  was  among  her 
scholars.  But  the  name  which  really  throws  glory 
over  Whitby  is  the  name  of  a  cowherd  from  whose 
lips  during  the  reign  of  Oswiu  flowed  the  first  great 
English  song.  Though  well  advanced  in  years,  Csedmon 
had  learned  nothing  of  the  art  of  verse, .  the  alliterative 
jingle  so  common  among  his  fellows,  "  wherefore  being 
sometimes  at  feasts,  when  all  agreed  for  glee's  sake  to  sing 
in  turn,  he  no  sooner  saw  the  harp  corne  towards  him  than 
he  rose  from  the  board  and  went  homewards.  Once 
when  he  had  done  thus,  and  gone  from  the  feast  to  the 


i.J  EAELY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  55  , 

stable  where  he  had  that  night  charge  of  the  cattle,  there   CHAP.  II. 
appeared  to  him  in  his  sleep  One  who  said,  greeting  him       ^ 
by  name,  '  Sing,  Csedmon,  some  song  to  Me.'     '  I  cannot  sfngdoms. 
sing,'  he  answered ;  '  for  this  cause  left  I  the  feast  and       ^^_ 
came  hither.'     He  who  talked  with  him  ans \vered  '  How-      796' 
ever  that  be,  you  shall  sing  to  Me.'     '  What  shall  I  sing  ? ' 
rejoined   Csedmon.      '  The   beginning   of  created   things,' 
replied    He.     In   the  morning  the  cowherd  stood   before 
Hild  and  told  his  dream.     Abbess  and  brethren  alike  con- 
chided  '  that  heavenly  grace  had  been  conferred  on  him  by 
the  Lord.'     They  translated  for  Caedmon  a  passage  in  Holy 
Writ,  '  bidding  him,  if  he  could,  put  the  same  into  verse/ 
The  next  morning  he  gave  it  them  composed  in  excellent 
verse,  whereon  the  abbess,  understanding  the  divine  grace 
in  the  man,  bade  him  quit  the  secular  habit  and  take  on 
him  the  monastic  life."     Piece  by  piece  the  sacred  story 
was  thus  thrown  into  Caedmon's  poem.     "  He  sang  of  the 
creation  of  the  world,  of  the  origin  of  man,  and  of  all  the 
history  of  Isra'el  ;    of   their  departure    from   Egypt   and 
entering   into   the  Promised   Land ;    of   the   incarnation, 
passion,  and  resurrection  of  Christ,  and  of  His  ascension  ; 
of  the  terror  of  future  judgement,  the  horror  of  hell -pangs, 
and  the  joys  of  heaven." 

But  even  while  Csedmon  was  singing  the  glories  of  typSfffi 
Northumbria  and  of  the  Irish  Church  were  passing  away. 
The  revival  of  Mercia  was  as  rapid  as  its  fall.  Only  a  few 
years  after  Penda's  defeat  the  Mercians  threw  off  Oswiu's 
yoke  and  set  Wulf  here,  a  son  of  Penda,  on  their  throne. 
They  were  aided  in  their  revolt,  no  doubt,  by  a  religious 
strife  which  was  now  rending  the  Northumbrian  realm. 
The  labour  of  Aidan,  the  victories  of  Oswald  and  Oswiu, 
seemed  to  have  annexed  the  north  to  the  Irish  Church. 
The  monks  of  Lindisfarne,  or  of  the  new  religious  houses 
whose  foundation  followed  that  of  Lindisfarne,  looked  for 
their  ecclesiastical  tradition,  riot  to  Kome  but  to  Ireland ; 
and  quoted  for  their  guidance  the  instructions,  not  of 
Gregory,  but  of  Columba.  Whatever  claims  of  supremacy 


56  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         [BOOK 

. . . 


CHAP.  II.   over  the  whole  English  Church  might  be  pressed  by  the 
^        see  of  Canterbury,  the  real  metropolitan  of  the  Church  as 
Kingdoms    **  existed  in  the  North  of  England  was  the  Abbot  of  lona. 
But  Oswiu's  queen,  brought  with  her  from  Kent  the  loyalty 


796.  Of  ti^  Kentish  Church  to  the  Eoman  see  ;  and  the  visit 
of  two  young  thegus  to  the  Imperial  city  raised  their 
love  of  Eome  into  a  passionate  fanaticism.  The  elder  of 
these,.  Benedict  Biscop,  returned  to  denounce  the  usages 
in  which  the  Irish  Church  differed  from  the  Roman  as 
schismatic  ;  and  the  vigour  of  his  comrade  Wilfrid  stirred 
so  hot  a  strife  that  Oswiu  was  prevailed  upon  to  summon 
in  664  a  great  council  at  Whitby,  where  the  future  ecclesi- 
astical allegiance  of  his  realm  should  be  decided.  The 
points  actually  contested  were  trivial  enough.  Colman, 
Aidan's  successor  at  Holy  Island,  pleaded  for  the  Irish 
fashion  of  the  tonsure,  and  for  the  Irish  time  of  keeping 
Easter  :  Wilfrid  pleaded  for  the-  liornan.  The  one  dis- 
putant appealed  to  the  authority  of  Coluniba,  the  other  to 
that  of  St.  Peter.  "  You  own,"  cried  the  King  at  last  to 
Colman,  "  that  Christ  gave  to  Peter  the  keys  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  —  has  He  given  such  power  to  Columba  ?  "  The 
bishop  could  but  answer  "  No."  "  Then  will  I  rather  obey 
the  porter  of  heaven,"  said  Oswiu,  "  lest  when  I  reach  its 
gates  he  who  has  the  keys  in  his  keeping  turn  his  back  on 
me,  and  there  be  none  to  open."  The  humorous  tone  of 
Oswiu's  decision  could  not  hide  its  importance,  and  the 
synod  had  no  sooner  broken  up,  than  Colman,  followed  by 
the  whole  of  the  Irish-born  brethren  and  thirty  of  their 
English  fellows,  forsook  the  see  of  St.  Aidan  and  sailed 
away  to  lona.  Trivial  in  fact  as  were  the  actual  points 
of  difference  which  severed  the  Eoman  Church  from  the 
Irish,  the  question  to  which  communion"  Northumbria 
should  belong  was  of  immense  moment  to  the  after 
fortunes  of  England.  Had  the  Church  of  Aidan  finally 
won,  the  later  ecclesiastical  history  of  England  would 
probably  have  resembled  that  of  Ireland.  Devoid  of  [that 
power  of  organization  which  was  the  strength  of  the 


I.] 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


57 


Roman  Church,  the  Celtic  Church  in  its  own  Irish  home 
took  the  clan  system  of  the  country  as  the  basis  of  its 
government.  Tribal  quarrels  and  ecclesiastical  contro- 
versies  became  inextricably  confounded  ;  and  the  'clergy, 
robbed  of  all  really  spiritual  influence,  contributed  no 
element  save  that  of  disorder  to  the  state.  Hundreds  of 
wandering  bishops,  a  vast  religious  authority  wielded  by 
hereditary  chieftains,  the  dissociation  of  piety  from 
morality,  the  absence  of  those  larger  and  more  humanizing 
influences  which  contact  with  a  wider  world  alone  can  give, 
this  is  a  picture  which  the  Irish  Church  of  later  times 
presents  to  us.  It  was  from  such  a  chaos  as  this  that 
England  was  saved  by  the  victory  of  Home  in  the  Synod 
of  Whitby.  But  the  success  of  Wilfrid  dispelled  a  yet 
greater  danger.  Had  England  clung  to  the  Irish  Church 
it  must  have  remained  spiritually  isolated  from  the  bulk 
of  the  Western  world.  Fallen  as  Rome  might  be  from  its 
older  greatness,  it  preserved  the  traditions  of  civilization, 
of  letters  and  art  and  law.  Its  faith  still  served  as  a  bond 
which  held  together  the  nations  that  sprang  from  the 
wreck  of  the  Empire.  To  fight  against  Rome  wras,  as 
Wilfrid  said,  "  to  fight  against  the  world."  To  repulse 
Rome  was  to  condemn  England  to  isolation.  Dimly  as 
such  thoughts  may  have  presented  themselves  to  Oswiu's 
mind,  it  was  the  instinct  of  a  statesman  that  led  him  to 
set  aside  the  love  and  gratitude  of  his  youth  and  to  link 
England  to  Rome  in  the  Synod  of  Whitby. 

Oswiu's  assent  to  the  vigorous  measures  of  organization 
undertaken  by  a  Greek  monk,  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  whom 
Rome  despatched  in  668  to  secure  England  to  her  sway 
as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  marked  a  yet  more  decisive 
step  in  the  new  policy.  The  work  of  Theodore  lay  mainly 
in  the  organization  of  the  episcopate,  and  thus  the  Church 
of  England,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  is  the  work,  so  far  as  its 
outer  form  is  concerned,  of  Theodore.  His  work  was 
determined  in  its  main  outlines  by  the  previous  history  of 
the  English  people.  The  conquest  of  the  Continent  had 


CHAP.  II. 


796' 


58  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHU>.  II.  been  wrought  either  by  races  which  were  already  Chris- 
^"  tian,  or  by  heathens  who  bowed  to  the  Christian  faith 

English  Of  the  nations  they  conquered.  To  this  oneness  of  religion 
^L  "  between  the  German  invaders  of  the  Empire  and  their 
7^6-  Eomau  subjects  was  owing  the  preservation  of  all  that 
survived  of  the  Roman  world.  The  Church  everywhere 
remained  untouched.  The  Christian  bishop  became  the 
defender  of  the  conquered  Italian  or  Gaul  against  his 
Gothic  and  Lombard  conqueror,  the  mediator  between  the 
German  and  his  subjects,  the  one  bulwark  against  bar- 
baric violence  and  oppression.  To  the  barbarian,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  was  the  representative  of  all  that  was 
venerable  in  the  past,  the  living  record  of  law,  of  letters, 
and  of  art.  But  in  Britain  the  priesthood  and  the  people 
had  been  driven  out  together.  When  Theodore  came  to 
organize  the  Church  of  England,  the  very  memory  of  the 
older  Christian  Church  which  existed  in  Roman  Britain  had 
passed  away.  The  first  missionaries  to  the  Englishmen, 
strangers  in  a  heathen  land,  attached  themselves  neces- 
sarily to  the  courts  of  the  kings,  who  were  their  earliest 
converts,  and  whose  conversion  was  generally  followed  by 
that  of  their  people.  The  English  bishops  were  thus  ai 
first  royal  chaplains,  and  their  diocese  was  naturally 
nothing  but  the  kingdom.  In  this  way  realms  which  arc 
all  but  forgotten  are  commemorated  in  the  limits  of  existing- 
sees.  That  of  Rochester  represented  till  of  late  an  obscure 
kingdom  of  West  Kent,  and  the  frontier  of  the  original 
kingdom  of  Mercia  may  be  recovered  by  following  the 
map  of  the  ancient  bishopric  of  Lichfield.  In  adding 
many  sees  to  those  he  found  Theodore  was  careful  to  make 
their  dioceses  co-extensive  with  existing  tribal  demarca- 
tions. But  he  soon  passed  from  this  extension  of  the 
episcopate  to  its  organization.  IP.  his  arrangement  oi 
dioceses,  and  the  way  in  which  he  grouped  them  round 
the  see  of  Canterbury,  in  his  national  synods  and  ecclesi- 
astical canons,  Theodore  did  unconsciously  a  political  work 
The  old  divisions  of  kingdoms  and  tribes  about  him 


s.J  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  59 

divisions  which  had  sprung  for  the  most  part  from  mere    CHAP.  II. 
accidents  of  the  conquest,  were  now  fast  breaking  down.        The 
The  smaller  states  were  by  this  time  practically  absorbed  Khfgxioina 
by  the  three  larger  ones,  and  of  these  three  Mercia  and       5~^_ 
Wessex    were    compelled    to    bow   to   the    superiority  of      796' 
N"ortlmmbria.     The  tendency  to  national  unity  which  was 
to  characterize  the  new  England  had  thus  already  declared 
itself;  but  the  policy  of  Theodore  clothed  with  a  sacred 
form  and  surrounded  with  divine  sanctions  a  unity  which 
as  yet  rested  on  no  basis  but  the  sword.     The  single  throne 
of  the  one  Primate  at  Canterbury  accustomed  men's  minds 
to  the  thought  of  a  single  throne  for  their  one  temporal 
overlord.     The  regular  subordination  of  priest  to  bishop, 
of  bishop  to  primate,  in  the  administration  of  the  Church, 
supplied  a  mould  on  which  the  civil  organization  of  the 
state    quietly    shaped    itself.      Above   all,   the    councils 
gathered    by    Theodore    were   the   first  of  our    national 
gatherings  for  general  legislation.     It  was  at  a  much  later 
time  that  the   Wise  Men  of  Wessex,  or  Northumbria,  or 
Mercia  learned  to  come  together  in  the  Witenagemote  of 
all  England.     The    synods   which  Theodore  convened   as 
religiously  representative  of  the  whole  English  nation  led 
the  way  by  their  example  to  our  national  parliaments.    The 
canons   which   these  synods    enacted   led  the  way   to   a 
national  system  of  law. 

The  organization  of  the  episcopate  was  followed  by  the  Wulfhere. 
organization  of  the  parish  system.  The  mission-station 
or  monastery  from  which  priest  or  bishop  went  forth  on 
journey  after  journey  to  preach  and  baptize  naturally  dis- 
appeared as  the  land  became  Christian.  The  missionaries 
turned  into  settled  clergy.  As  the  King's  chaplain  became 
a  bishop  and  the  kingdom  his  diocese,  so  the  chaplain  of  an 
English  noble  became  the  priest  and  the  manor  his  parish. 
But  this  parish  system  is  probably  later  than  Theodore, 
and  the  system  of  tithes  which  has  been  sometimes 
coupled  with  his  name  dates  only  from  the  close  of  the 
eighth  century.  What  was  really  due  to  him  was  the 


60  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BCOK 


CHAP.  II.    organization  of  the  episcopate,  and  the  impulse  which  this 
^        gave  to  national  unity.     But  the  movement  towards  unity 

English     found  a  sudden  check  in  the  revived  strength  of  Mercia. 
Kingdoms.  ° 

5~  Wulfhere  proved  a  vigorous  and  active  ruler,  and  the 
796.  peaceful  reign  of  Oswiu  left  him  free  to  build  up  again 
during  seventeen  years  of  rule  (657-675)  that  Mercian 
overlordship  over  the  tribes  of  mid-England  which  had 
been  lost  at  Penda's  death.  He  had  more  than  his  father's 
success.  Not  only  did  Essex  again  own  his  supre- 
macy but  even  London  fell  into  Mercian  hands.  The  West- 
Saxons  were  driven  across  the  Thames,  and  nearly  all 
their  settlements  to  the  north  of  that  river  were  annexed 
to  the  Mercian  realm.  Wulfhere's  supremacy  soon  reached 
even  south  of  the  Thames,  for  Sussex  in  its  dread  of 
West-Saxons  found  protection  in  accepting  his  overlord- 
ship,  and  its  king  was  rewarded  by  a  gift  of  the  two 
outlying  settlements  of  the  Jutes — the  Isle  of  Wight  and 
the  lands  of  the  Meonwaras  along  the  Southampton  water 
— which  we  must  suppose  had  been  reduced  by  Mercian 
arms.  The  industrial  progress  of  the  Mercian  kingdom  went 
hand  in  hand  with  its  military  advance.  The  forests  of  its 
western  bolder,  the  marshes  of  its  eastern  coast,  were  being 
cleared  and  drained  by  monastic  colonies,  whose  success 
shows  the  hold  which  Christianity  had  now  gained  over 
its  people.  '  Heathenism  indeed  still  held  its  own  in  the  wild 
western  woodlands'  and  in  the  yet  wilder  fen-country  on 
the  eastern  border  of  the  kingdom  which  stretched  from  the 
"  Holland,"  the  sunk,  hollow  land  of  Lincolnshire,  to  the 
channel  of  the  Ouse,  a  wilderness  of  shallow  waters  and 
reedy  islets  wrapped  in  its  own  dark  mist- veil  and  tenanted 
only  by  flocks  of  screaming  wild-fowl.  But  in  either 
quarter  the  new  faith  made  its  way.  In  the  western 
woods  Bishop  Ecgwine  found  a  site  for  an  abbey  round 
which  gathered  the  town  of  Evesham,  and  the  eastern 
fen-land  was  soon  filled  with  religious  houses.  Here 
through  the  liberality  of  King  Wulfhere  rose  the  abbey  of 
Peterborough.  Here  too,  Guthlac,  a  youth  of  the  royal 


I 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  61 


race   of  Mercia,  sought  a  refuge   from  the  world  in  the  CHAP.  n. 
solitudes  of  Crowland,  and  so  great  was  the  reverence  he       ^ 
won,  that  only  two  years  had  passed  since  his  death  when  Kingdoms, 
the  stately  Abbey  of  Crowland  rose  over  his  tomb.     Earth       577- 
was  brought  in  boats  to  form  a  site  ;  the  buildings  rested 
on  oaken   piles    driven   into  the   marsh ;    a    great   stone 
church  replaced  the  hermit's  cell ;  and  the  toil  of  the  new 
brotherhood  changed  the  pools  around  them  into  fertile 
meadow-land. 

In  spite  however  of  this  rapid  recovery  of  its  strength  Ecgfrith. 
by  Mercia  Northumbria  remained  the  dominant  state  in 
Britain :  and  Ecgfrith,  who  succeeded  Oswiu  in  670,  so 
utterly  defeated  Wulfhere  when  war  broke  out  between 
them  that  he  was  glad  to  purchase  peace  by  the  surrender 
of  Lincolnshire.  Peace  would  have  been  purchased  more 
hardly  had  not  Ecgfrith's  ambition  turned  rather  to  con- 
quests over  the  Briton  than  to  victories  over  his  fellow 
Englishmen.  The  war  between  Briton  and  Englishman 
which  had  languished  since  the  battle  of  Chester  had 
been  revived  some  twelve  years  before  by  an  advance  of 
the  West-Saxons  to  the  south-west.  Unable  to  save  the 
possessions  of  Wessex  north  of  the  Thames  from  the  grasp 
of  Wulfhere,  their  king,  Cenwalh,  sought  for  compensation 
in  an  attack  on  his  Welsh  neighbours.  A  victory  at 
Bradford  on  the  Avon  enabled  him  to  overrun  the  country 
near  Mendip  which  had  till  then  been  held  by  the 
Britons ;  and  a  second  campaign  in  658,  which  ended  in  a 
victory  on  the  skirts  of  the  great  forest  that  covered 
Somerset  to  the  east,  settled  the  West-Saxons  as  con- 
querors round  the  sources  of  the  Parret.  It  may  have 
been  the  example  of  the  West-Saxons  which  spurred 
Ecgfrith  to  a  series  of  attacks  upon  his  British  neighbours 
in  the  west  which  widened  the  bounds  of  his  kingdom. 
His  reign  marks  the  highest  pitch  of  Northumbrian  power. 
His  armies  chased  the  Britons  from  the  kingdom  of  Cum- 
bria and  made  the  district  of  Carlisle  English  ground. 
A  large  part  of  the  conquered  country  was  bestowred  upon 


(J2  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

IAP.  II.    the  see  of  Lindisfarne,  which  was  at  this  time  filled  by 
one  whom  we  have  seen   "before  labouring  as  the  Apostle 
of  the  Lowlands.     Cuthbert   had   found  a  new  mission- 
577_      station  in  Holy  Island,  and  preached  among  the  moors  of 
796.       Northumberland  as  he  had  preached  beside  the  banks  of 
Tweed.      He  remained  there  through  the  great  secession 
which   followed  on   the  Synod  of    Whitby,  and  became 
prior  of  the  dwindled  company  of  brethren,  now  torn  with 
endless  disputes    against  which   his  patience    and    good 
humour  struggled  in  vain.     "Worn  out  at  last,  he  fled  to  a 
little  island  of  basaltic  rock,  one  of  the  Fame  group  not  far 
from  Ida's  fortress  of  Bamborough,  strewn  for  the  most  part 
with  kelp  and  sea- weed,  the  home  of  the  gull  and  the  seal. 
In  the  midst  of  it  rose  his  hut  of  rough  stones  and  turf, 
dug  down  within  deep  into  the  rock,  and  roofed  with  logs 
and   straw.     But  the  reverence   for  his  sanctity  dragged 
Cuthbert  back  to  fill  the  vacant  see  of  Lindisfarne.     He 
entered  Carlisle,  which  the  King  had  bestowed  upon  the 
bishopric,  at  a  moment  when  all  Northumbria  was  waiting 
for  news  of  a  fresh  campaign  of  Ecgfrith's   against   the 
Britons  in  the  north.     Tiie  Firth  of  Forth  had  long  been 
the  limit  of  Northumbria,    but  the  Picts  to  the  north  of 
it  owned  Ecgfrith's  supremacy.     In  685  however  the  King 
resolved  on  their  actual  subjection  and  marched  across  the 
Forth.     A  sense  of  coming  ill  weighed  on  Northumbria, 
and  its  dread  was  quickened  by  a  memory  of  the  curses 
which  had  been  pronounced  by  the  bishops  of  Ireland  on 
its  King,  when  his  navy,  setting  out  a  year  before  from 
the  newly-conquered  western  coast,  swept  the  Irish  shores 
in  a  raid  which  seemed  like  sacrilege  to  those  who  loved 
the  home  of  Aidan   and   Columba.      As   Cuthbert    bent 
over  a  Eoman  fountain  which  still  stood  unharmed  amongst 
the  ruins  of  Carlisle,  the  anxious  bystanders  thought  they 
caught  words  of  ill-omen  falling  from  the  old  man's  lips. 
"Perhaps,"  he   seemed   to   murmur,    "at   this  very  hour 
the  peril  of  the  fight   is  over  and  done."      "  Watch  and 
pray,"  he  said,  when  they  questioned  him  on  the  morrow ; 


I]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  63 

"  watch  and  pray."     In  a  few  days  more  a  solitary  fugitive    CHAP.  n. 
escaped  from  the  slaughter  told  that  the  Picts  had  turned 
desperately  to    bay   as    the  English  army  entered    Fife : 
and  that  Ecgfrith  and   the   flower   of   his   nobles  lay,  a 
ghastly    ring   of  corpses,    011     the    far-off    moorland    of      796- 
Nectansmere. 

The  blow  was  a  fatal  one  for  Northumbrian  greatness,  Mercian 
for  while  the  Picts  pressed  on  the  kingdom  from  the  9reatnesf 
north  ^Ethelred,  Wulf  here's  successor,  attacked  it  on  the 
Mercian  border,  and  the  war  was  only  ended  by  a  peace 
which  left  him  master  of  Middle  England  and  free  to 
attempt  the  direct  conquest  of  the  south.  Eor  the  moment 
this  attempt  proved  a  fruitless  one.  Mercia  was  still  too 
weak  to  grasp  the  lordship  which  was  slipping  from 
Xorthumbria's  hands,  while  Wessex  which  seemed  her 
destined  prey  rose  at  this  moment  into  fresh  power  under 
the  greatest  of  its  early  kings.  Ine,  the  West-Saxon  king 
whose  reign  covered  the  long  period  from  688  to  728,  carried  . 
on  during  the  whole  of  it  the  war  which  Cent  wine  had  begun. 
He  pushed  his  way  southward  round  the  marshes  of  the 
Parret  to  a  more  fertile  territory,  and  guarded  the  frontier 
of  his  new  conquests  by  a  wooden  fort  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tone  which  has  grown  into  the  present  Taunton.  The 
West-Saxons  tTius  became  masters  of  the  whole  district 
which  now  bears  the  name  of  Somerset.  The  conquest  of 
Sussex  and  of  Kent  on  his  eastern  border  made  Ine  master 
of  all  Britain  south  of  the  Thames,  and  his  repulse  of  a 
new  Mercian  King  Ceolred  in  a  bloody  encounter  at  Wod- 
nesburh  in  714  seemed  to  establish  the  threefold  division  of 
the  English  race  between  three  realms  of  almost  equal  power. 
But  able  as  Ine  was  to  hold  Mercia  at  bay,  he  was  unable  to 
hush  the  civil  strife  that  was  the  curse  of  Wessex,  and  a 
wild  legend  tells  the  story  of  the  disgust  which  drove  him 
from  the  world.  He  had  feasted  royally  at  one  of  his  country 
houses,  and  on  the  morrow,  as  he  rode  from  it,  his  queen  bade 
him  turn  back  thither.  The  king  returned  to  find  his  house 
stripped  of  curtains  and  vessels,  and  foul  with  refuse  and  the 


(J4  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  dung  of  cattle,  while  in  the  royal  bed  where  he  had  slept 
^        with  ^Ethelburh  rested  a  sow  with  her  farrow  of  pigs.    The 

KFiiggdoms  scene  had  no  need  of  the  queen's  comment :  "  See,  my  lord, 
^j_  how  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away  !"  In  726  he 
^?®g  sought  peace  in  a  pilgrimage  to  Home.  The  anarchy  which 
had  driven' Ine  from  the  throne  broke  out  in  civil  strife 
which  left  Wessex  an  easy  prey  to  Jjlthelbald,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Ceolred  in  the  Mercian  realm.  ^Ethelbald  took 
up  with  better  fortune  the  struggle  of  his  people  for  su- 
premacy over  the  south.  He  penetrated  to  the  very  heart 
of  the  West-Saxon  kingdom,,  and  his  siege  and  capture  of 
the  royal  town  of  Somerton  in  733  ended  the  war.  For 
twenty  years  the  overlordship  of  Mercia  was  recognized 
by  all  Britain  south  of  the  Humber.  It  was  at  the  head 
of 'the  forces  not  of  Mercia  only  but  of  East-Anglia,  Kent, 
and  Essex,  as  well  as  of  the  West-Saxons,  that  ^Ethelbald 
marched  against  the  Welsh  on  his  western  border. 
Bccda.  In  so  complete  a  mastery  of  the  south  the  Mercian  King 
found  grounds  for  a  hope  that -Northern  Britain  would  also 
yield  to  his  sway.  But  the  dream  of  a  single  England  was 
again  destined  to  be  foiled.  Fallen  as  Nortlmmbria  was 
from  its  old  glory,  it  still  remained  a  great  power.  Under 
the  peaceful  reigns  of  Ecgfrith's  successors,  Aldfrith  and 
Ceolwulf,  their  kingdom  became  the  literary  centre  of 
Western  Europe.  No  schools  were  more  famous  than,  those 
of  Jarrow  and  York.  The  whole  learning  of  the  age  seemed 
to  be  summed  up  in  a  Northumbrian  scholar.  Bseda — the 
Venerable  Bede  as  later  times  styled  him — was  born  about 
ten  years  after  the  Synod  of  Whitby  beneath  the  shade  of  a 
great  abbey  which  Benedict  Biscop  was  rearing  by  the  mouth 
of  the  Wear.  His  youth  was  trained  and  his  long  tranquil 
life  was  wholly  spent  in  an  offshoot  of  Benedict's  house 
which  was  founded  by  his  scholar  Ceolfrid.  Bseda  never 
stirred  from  Jarrow.  "  I  spent  my  whole  life  in  the  same 
monastery,"  he  says,  "  and  while  attentive  to  the  rule  of 
my  order  and  the  service  of  the  Church,  my  constant 
pleasure  lay  in  learning,  or  teaching,  or  writino-."  The 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  65 

words  sketch  for  us  a  scholar's  life,  the  more  touching  in  CHAI-.  II. 
its  simplicity  that  it  is  the  life  of  the  first  great  English  f^ 
scholar.  The  quiet  grandeur  of  a  life  consecrated  to  King^oins. 
knowledge,  the  tranquil  pleasure  that  lies  in  learning  and  ^j_ 
teaching  and  writing,  dawned  for  Englishmen  in  the  story  7^' 
of  Bceda.  While  still  young  he  became  a  teacher,  and  six 
hundred  monks  besides  strangers  that  flocked  thither  for 
instruction  formed  his  school  of  Jarrow.  It  is  hard  to 
imagine  how  among  the  toils  of  the  schoolmaster  and  the 
duties  of  the  monk  Breda  could  have  found  time  for  the 
composition  of  the  numerous  works  that  made  his  name 
famous  in  the  West.  But  materials  for  study  had  accumu- 
lated in  Xorthumbria  through  the  journeys  of  Wilfrid  and 
Benedict  Biscop  and  the  libraries  which  were  forming  at 
Wearmouth  and  York  The  tradition  of  the  older  Irish 
teachers  still  lingered  to  direct  the  young  scholar  into  that 
path  of  Scriptural  interpretation  to  which  he  chiefly  owed 
his  fame.  Greek,  a  rare  accomplishment  in  the  West,  came 
to  him  from  the  school  which  the  Greek  Archbishop 
Theodore  founded  beneath  the  walls  of  Canterbury.  His 
skill  in  the  ecclesiastical  chant  was  derived  from  a  Roman 
cantor  whom  Pope  Vitalian  sent  in  the  train  of  Benedict 
Biscop.  Little  by  little  the  young  scholar  thus  made  nini- 
self  master  of  the  whole  range  of  the  science  of  his  time ; 
he  became,  as  Burke  rightly  styled  him,  "the  father  of 
English  learning."  The  tradition  of  the  older  classic 
culture  was  first  revived  for  England  in  his  quotations  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  of  Seneca  and  Cicero,  of  Lucretius  and 
Ovid.  Vergil  cast  over  him  the  same  spell  that  he  cast 
over  Dante ;  verses  from  the  ^neid  break  his  narratives  ot 
martyrdoms,  and  the  disciple  ventures  on  the  track  of  the 
great  master  in  a  little  eclogue  descriptive  of  the  approach 
of  spring.  His  work  was  done  with  small  aid  from  others. 
"  I  am  my  own  secretary,"  he  writes ;  "  I  make  my  own 
notes.  I  am  my  own  librarian."  But  forty-five  works 
remained  after  his  death  to  attest  his  prodigious  industry. 
In  his  own  eyes  and  those  of  his  contemporaries  the  most 


6g  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.   important  among  these  were  the  commentaries  and  homilies 

^       upon  various  books  of  the  Bible  which  he  had  drawn  from 

English     t]ie  writlno-s  of  the  Fathers.     But  he  was  far  from  confining 

kingdoms. 

^^  himself  to  theology.  In  treatises  compiled  as  text-books 
796.  fol,  his  scholars  Bseda  threAv  together  all  that  the  world 
had  then  accumulated  in  astronomy  and  meteorology,  in 
physics  and  music,  in  philosophy,  grammar,  rhetoric, 
arithmetic,  medicine.  But  the  encyclopaedic  character  of 
his  researches  left  him  in  heart  a  simple  Englishman. 
He  loved  his  own  English  tongue,  he  was  skilled  in  English 
song,  his  last  work  was  a  translation  into  English  of  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John,  and  almost  the  last  words  that  broke 
from  his  lips  were  some  English  rimes  upon  death. 

But  the  noblest  proof  of  his  love  of  England  lies  in  the 
work  which  immortalizes  his  name.  In  his  "  Ecclesiastical 
History  of  the  English  Nation,"  Bseda  was  at  once  the 
founder  of  medieval  history  and  the  first  English  historian. 
All  that  we  really  know  of  the  century  and  a  half  that 
follows  the  landing  of  Augustine  we  know  from  him. 
Wherever  his  own  personal  observation  extended,  the  story 
is  told  with  admirable  detail  and  force.  He  is  hardly  less 
full  or  accurate  in  the  portions  which  he  owed  to  his 
Kentish  friends,  Alcvvine  and  Nothelm.  What  he  owed  to 
no  informant  was  his  exquisite  faculty  of  story-telling, 
and  yet  no  story  of  his  own  telling  is  so  touching  as  the 
story  of  his  death.  Two  weeks  before  the  Easter  of  735 
the  old  man  was  seized  with  an  extreme  weakness  and  loss 
of  breath.  He  still  preserved  however  his  usual  pleasant- 
ness and  gay  good-humour,  and  in  spite  of  prolonged 
sleeplessness  continued  his  lectures  to  the  pupils  about 
him.  Verses  of  his  own  English  tongue  broke  from  time 

o  O 

to  time  from  the  master's  lip — rude  rimes  that  told  how 
before  the  "  need-fare,"  Death's  stern  "  must  go,"  none  can 
enough  bethink  him  what  is  to  be  his  doom  for  good  or 
ill,  The  tears  of  Ba^da's  scholars  mingled  with  his  song. 
"We  never  read  without  weeping,"  writes  one  of  them. 
So  the  days  rolled  on  to  Ascension-tide,  and  still  master 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  67 

and  pupils  toiled  at  their  work,  for  Basda  longed  to  bring  CHAP. 
to  an  end  his  version  of  St.  John's  Gospel  into  the  English 
tongue  and  his  extracts  from  Bishop  Isidore.  "  I  don't 
want  my  boys  to  read  a  lie,"  he  answered  those  who  would  577- 
have  had  him  rest,  "  or  to  work  to  no  purpose  after  I  am  796' 
gone."  A  few  days  before  Ascension-tide  his  sickness 
grew  upon  him,  but  he  spent  the  whole  clay  in  teaching, 
only  saying  cheerfully  to  his •  scholars,  "Learn  with  what 
speed  you  may ;  I  know  not  how  long  I  may  last."  The 
dawn  broke  on  another  sleepless  night,  and  again  the  old 
man  called  his  scholars  round  him  and  bade  them  write. 
"  There  is  still  a  chapter  wanting,"  said  the  scribe,  as  the 
morning  drew  on,  <;  and  it  is  hard  for  thee  to  question 
thyself  any  longer."  "  It  is  easily  done,"  said  Baeda ; 
"  take  thy  pen  and  write  quickly."  Amid  tears  and  fare- 
wells the  day  wore  on  to  eventide.  "  There  is  yet  one 
sentence  unwritten,  dear  master,"  said  the  boy.  "  Write 
it  quickly,"  bade  the  dying  man.  "  It  is  finished  now," 
said  the  little  scribe  at  last.  "  You  speak  truth,"  said  the 
master  ;  "  all  is  finished  now."  Placed  upon  the  pavement, 
his  head. supported  in  his  scholar's  arms,  his  face  turned  to 
the  spot  where  he  was  wont  to  pray,  Baada  chanted  the 
solemn  "  Glory  to  God."  As  his  voice  reached  the  close 
of  his  song  he  passed  quietly  away. 

First  among  English  scholars,  first  among  English  theo-     Fall  of 
logians,  first  among  English  historians,  it  is  in  the  monk  of      ja^  " 
.Tarrow  that  English  literature  strikes  its  roots.     In  the 
six  hundred  scholars  who  gathered  round  him  for  instruc- 
tion he  is  the  father  of  our  national  education.     In  his 
physical  treatises  he  is  the  first  figure  to  which  our  science  . 
looks  back.     But  the  quiet  tenor  of  his  scholar's  life  was 
broken  by  the  growing  anarchy  of  Nbrthumbria,  and  by 
threats  of  war  from  its  Mercian  rival.     At  last  ^Ethelbald 
marched  on  a  state  which  seemed  exhausted  by  civil  dis- 
cord and  ready  for  submission  to  his  arms.     But  its  king 
Eadberht  showed  himself  worthy  of  the  kings  that  had  gone 
before  him,  and  in  740  he  threw  back  yEthelbald's  attack  iu 


68 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE, 


English 
Kingdoms 

577- 
796. 


Offa. 


CHAP  II.  a  repulse  which  not  only  ruined  the  Mercian  ruler's  hopes 
of  northern  conquest  but  loosened  his  hold  on  the  south. 
Aireaciy  goaded  to  revolt  by  exactions,  the  West-Saxons 
were  roused  to  a  fresh  struggle  for  independence,  and  after 
twelve  years  of  continued  outbreaks  the  whole  people 
mustered  at  Burford  under  the  golden  dragon  of  their 
race.  The  fight  was  a  desperate  one,  but  a  sudden  panic 
seized  the  Mercian  King.  He  fled  from  the  field,  and  a 
decisive  victory  freed  Wessex  from  the  Mercian  yoke. 
Four  years  later,  in  757,  its  freedom  was  maintained  by 
a  new  victory  at  Secandun ;  but  amidst  the  rout  of  his 
host  ^Ethelbald  redeemed  the  one  hour  of  shame  that  had 
tarnished  his  glory ;  he  refused  to  fly,  and  fell  fighting  on 
the  field. 

But  though  Eadberht  might  beat  back  the  inroads  of  the 
Mercians  and  even  conquer  Strathclyde,  before  the  anarchy 
of  his  own  kingdom  he  could  only  fling  down  his  sceptre 
and  seek  a  refuge  in  the  cloister  of  Lindisfarne.  From 
the  death  of  Baeda  the  history  of  Northumbria  became  in 
fact  little  more  than  a  wild  story  of  lawlessness  and  blood- 
shed. King  after  king  was  swept  away  by  treason  and 
revolt,  the  country  fell  into  the  hands  of  its  turbulent 
nobles,  its  very  fields  lay  waste,  and  the  land  wras  scourged 
by  famine  and  plague.  An  anarchy  almost  as  complete 
fell  on  Wessex  after  the  recovery  of  its  freedom.  Only  in 
Mid-England  was  there  any  sign  of  order  and  settled  rule. 
The  two  crushing  defeats  at  Burford  and  Secandun,  though 
they  had  brought  about  revolts  which  stripped  Mercia  of 
all  the  conquests  it  had  made,  were  far  from  having  broken 
the  Mercian  power.  Under  the  long  reign  of  Offa,  which 
went  on  from  755  to  796,  It  rose  again  to  all  but  its  old 
dominion.  Since  the  dissolution  of  the  temporary  alliance 
which  Penda  formed  with  the  Welsh  King  Cadwallon  the 
war  with  the  Britons  in  the  west  had  been  the  one  great 
hindrance  to  the  progress  of  Mercia.  But  under  Offa 
Mercia  braced  herself  to  the  completion  jof  her  British 
conquests.  Beating  back  the  Welsh  from  Hereford, 


i.J  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  69 


and  carrying  his  own  ravages  into  the  heart  of  Wales,  CHAP.  II. 
Offa  in  779  drove  the  King  of  Powys  from  his  capital,  ^ 
which  changed  its  old  name  of  Pengwern  for  the  signifi-  Kingdoms, 
cant  English  title  of  the  Town  in  the  Scrub  or  Bush,  5~^_ 
Scrobbesbyryg,  Shrewsbury.  Experience  however  had  796' 
taught  the  Mercians  the  worthlessuess  of  raids  like  these 
and  Offa  resolved  to  create  a  military  border  by  planting  a 
settlement  of  Englishmen  between  the  Severn,  which  had 
till  then  served  as  the  western  boundary  of  the  English 
race,  and  the  huge  "  Offa's  Dyke  "  which  he  drew  from  the 
mouth  of  Wye  to  that  of  Dee.  Here,  as  in  the  later 
conquests  of  the  West-Saxons,  the  old  plan  of  extermina- 
tion was  definitely  abandoned  and  the  Welsh  who  chose  to 
remain  dwelled  undisturbed  among  their  English  con- 
querors. From  these  conquests  over  the  Britons  Offa 
turned  to  build  up  again  the  realm  which  had  been 
shattered  at  Secandun.  But  his  progress  was  slow.  A 
reconquest  of  Kent  in  774  woke  anew  the  jealousy  of 
the  West-Saxons ;  and  though  Offa  repulsed  their  attack  . 
at  Bensington  in  777  the  victory  was  followed  by  several 
years  of  inaction.  It  was  not  till  Wessex  was  again 
weakened  by  fresh  anarchy  that  he  was  able  to  seize 
East  Anglia  and  restore  his  realm  to  its  old  bounds  under 
Wulfhere.  Further  he  could  not  go.  A  Kentish  revolt 
occupied  him  till  his  death  .in  796,  and  his  successor 
Cenwulf  did  little  but  preserve  the  realm  he  bequeathed 
him.  At  the  close  of  the  eighth  century  the  drift  of  the 
English  peoples  towards  a  national  unity  was  in  fact 
utterly  arrested.  The  work  of  Northumbria  had  been 
foiled  by  the  resistance  of  Mercia;  the  effort  of  Mercia 
had  broken  down  before  the  resistance  of  Wessex.  A 
threefold  division  seemed  to  have  stamped  itself  upon  the 
land ;  and  so  complete  was  the  balance  of  power  between 
the  three  realms  which  parted  it  that  no  subjection  of  one 
to  the  other  seemed  likely  to  fuse  the  English  tribes  into 
an  English  people. 

VOL.  1.^-6 


CHAPTER  III 

WESSEX  AND  THE  NORTHMEN. 
796-947. 

The  THE  union  which  each  English  kingdom  in  turn  had  failed 
Northmen.  ^Q  ^ng  a|3OUt  Was  brought  about  by  the  pressure  of 
the  Northmen.  The  dwellers  in  the  isles  of  the  Baltic 
or  on  either  side  of  the  Scandinavian  peninsula  had  lain 
hidden  till  now  from  Western  Christendom,  waging  their 
battle  for  existence  with  a  stern  climate,  a  barren  soil,  and 
stormy  seas.  It  was  this  hard  fight  for  life  that  left  its 
stamp  on  the  temper  of  Dane,  Swede,  or  Norwegian 
alike,  that  gave  them  their  defiant  energy,  their  ruthless 
daring,  their  passion  for  freedom  and  hatred  of  settled  rule. 
Forays  and  plunder  raids  over  sea  eked  out  their  scanty 
livelihood,  and  at  the  close  of  the  eighth  century  these  raids 
found  a  wider  sphere  than  the  waters  of  the  northern  seas. 
Tidings  of  the  wealth  garnered  in  the  abbeys  and  towns  of 
the  new  Christendom  which  had  risen  from  the  wreck  of 
Rome  drew  the  pirates  slowly  southwards  to  the  coasts  of 
Northern  Gaul ;  and  just  before  Offa's  death  their  boats 
touched  the  shores  of  Britain.  To  men  of  that  day  it  must 
have  seemed  as  though  the  world  had  gone  back  three 
hundred  years.  The  same  northern  fiords  poured  forth 
their  pirate-fleets  as  in  the  days  of  Hengest  or  Cerdic. 
There  was  the  same  wild  panic  as  the  black  boats  of  the 
invaders  struck  inland  along  the  river-reaches  or  moored 
round  the  river  isles,  the  same  sights  of  horror,  firing  of 
homesteads,  slaughter  of  men,  women  driven  off  to 


BOOK  I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  71 

slavery  or  shame,  children  tossed  on  pikes  or  sold  in  the  CHAP.  III. 
market-place,  as  when  the  English  themselves  had  attacked     wessex 
Britain.     Christian  priests  were  again  slain  at  the  altar  Northman, 
by  worshippers  of  Woden;  letters,  arts,  religion,  govern-      795- 
ment  disappeared  before   these  Northmen   as  before  the      947 
Northmen  of  three  centuries  before. 

In  794  a  pirate  band  plundered  the  monasteries  of  Jarrow  Ecgberht 
and  Holy  Island,  and  the  presence  of  the  freebooters  soon 
told  on  the  political  balance  of  the  English  realms.  A 
great  revolution  was  going  on  in  the  south,  where  Mercia 
was  torn  by  civil  wars  which  followed  on  Cenwulfs  death 
wbile  the  civil  strife  of  the  West-Saxons  was  hushed  by 
a  new  king,  Ecgberht.  In  Offa's  days  Ecgbeiht  had  failed 
in  his  claim  of  the  crown  of  Wessex  and  had  been  driven 
to  fly  for  refuge  to  the  court  of  the  Franks.  He  remained 
there  through  the  memorable  year  during  which  Charles' 
the  Great  restored  the  Empire  of  the  West,  and  returned 
in  802  to  be  quietly  welcomed  as  King  by  the  West- 
Saxon  people.  A  march  into  the  heart  of  Cornwall  and  the 
conquest  of  this  last  fragment  of  the  British  kingdom  in  the 
south-west  freed  his  hands  for  a  strife  with  Mercia  which 
broke  out  in  825  when  the  Mercian  King  Beornwulf  marched 
into  the  heart  of  Wiltshire.  A  victory  of  Ecgberht  at 
Ellandun  gave  all  England  south  of  Thames  to  the  West- 
Saxons  and  the  defeat  of  Beornwulf  spurred  the  men  of 
East-Anglia  to  rise  in  a  desperate  revolt  against  Mercia. 
Two  great  overthrows  at  their  hands  had  already  spent 
its  strength  when  Ecgberht  crossed  the  Thames  in  827,  and 
the  realm  of  Penda  and  Offa  bowed  without  a  struggle 
to  its  conqueror.  But  Ecgberht  had  wider  aims  than 
those  of  supremacy  over  Mercia  alone.  The  dream  of  a 
union  of  all  England  drew  him  to  the  north.  Northumbria 
was  still  strong ;  in  learning  and  arts  it  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  English  race  ;  and  under  a  king  like  Eadberht 
it  would  have  withstood  Ecgberht  as  resolutely  as  it  had 
withstood  ^Ethelbald.  But  the  ruin  of  Jarrow  and  Holy 
Island  had  cast  on  it  a  spell  of  terror.  Torn  by  civil 


72  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAV  III    strife,  and  desperate  of  finding  in  itself  the  union  needed 
—        to  meet  the  Northmen,  Northumbria  sought  union  and 

and  the     deliverance  in  subjection  to  a  foreign  master.     Its  thegns 
Northmen.  "        .       .  .  ,  ,    ., 

— _      met  Ecgberht  in   Derbyshire,  and  owned  the  supremacy 

9_^-      of  Wessex. 

With  the  submission  of  Northumbria  the  work  which 
^aPtiM  Oswiu  and  JEthelbald  had  failed  to  do  was  done,  and  the 
Northmen.  whole  English  race  was  for  the  first  time  knit  together 
under  a  single  rule.  The  union  came  not  a  moment  too 
soon.  Had  the  old  severance  of  people  from  people,  the 
old  civil  strife  within  each  separate  realm  gone  on  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  the  attacks  of  the  Northmen  could  have 
been  withstood.  They  were  already  settled  in  Ireland  , 
and  from  Ireland  a  northern  host  landed  in  836  at  Char- 
mouth  in  Dorsetshire  strong  enough  to  drive  Ecgberht, 
when  he  hastened  to  meet  them,  from  the  field.  His 
victory  the  year  after  at  Hengestdun  won  a  little  rest  for 
the  land  ;  but  ^thelwulf  who  mounted  the  throne  on 
Ecgberht's  death  in  839  had  to  face  an  attack  which  was 
only  beaten  off  by  years  of  hard  fighting.  .^Ethelwulf 
fought  bravely  in  defence  of  his  realm ;  in  his  defeat  at 
Charmouth  as  in  a  final  victory  at  Acleain  851  he  led  his 
troops  in  person  against  the  sea-robbers ;  and  his  success 
won  peace  for  the  land  through  the  short  and  uneventful 
reigns  of  his  sons  JEthelbald  and  JEthelberht:  But  the 
northern  storm  burst  in  full  force  upon  England  when  a 
third  son,  ^Ethelred,  followed  his  brothers  on  the  throne. 
The  Northmen  were  now  settled  on  the  coast  of  Ireland 
and  the  coast  of  Gaul ;  they  were  masters  of  the  sea ;  and 
from  west  and  east  alike  they  closed  upon  Britain.  While 
one  host  from  Ireland  fell  on  the  Scot  kingdom  north  of  the 
Firth  of  Forth,  another  from  Scandinavia  landed  in  866  on 
the  coast  of  East  Anglia  under  Hubba  and  marched  the  next 
year  upon  York.  A  victory  over  two  claimants  of  its  crown 
gave  the  pirates  Northumbria  ;  and  their  two  armies  united 
at  Nottingham  in  868  for  an  attack  on  the  Mercian  realm, 
Mercia  was  saved  by  a  march  of  King  ^Ethelred  to  Not- 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


73 


796- 


tingham,  but  the  peace  he  made  there  with  the  Northmen  CHAP.  III 
left  them  leisure  to  prepare  for  an  invasion  of  East-Anglia,  wessex 
whose  under-King,  Eadmund,  brought  prisoner  before  their 
leaders,  was  bound  to  a  tree  and  shot  to  death  with  arrows. 
His  martyrdom  by  the  heathen  made  Eadmund  the  St. 
Sebastian  of  English  legend  ;  in  later  days  his  figure 
gleamed  from  the  pictured  windows  of  every  church  along 
the  eastern  coast,  and  the  stately  Abbey  of  St.  Edmunds  - 
bury  rose  over  his  relics.  With  him  ended  the  line  of  East- 
Anglian  under-kings,  for  his  kingdom  was  not  only 
conquered  but  divided  among  the  soldiers  of  the  pirate 
host,  and  their  leader  Guthrum  assumed  its  crown.  Then 
the  Northmen  turned  to  the  richer  spoil  of  the  great 
abbeys  of  the  Fen.  Peterborough,  Crowland,  Ely  went  up 
in  flames,  and  their  monks  fled  or  were  slain  among  the 
ruins.  Mercia,  though  still  spared  from  actual  conquest, 
cowered  panic-stricken  before  the  Northmen,  and  by  pay- 
ment of  tribute  owned  them  as  its  overlords. 

In  five  years  the  work  of  Ecgberht  had  been  undone, 
and  England  north  of  the  Thames  had  been  torn  from  the 
overlordship  of  Wessex.  So  rapid  a  change  could  only  have 
been  made  possible  by  the  temper  of  the  conquered  king- 
doms. To  them  the  conquest  was  simply  their  transfer 
from  one  overlord  to  another,  and  it  may  be  that  in  all 
there  were  men  who  preferred  the  overlordship  of  the 
Northman  to  the  overlordship  of  the  West-Saxon.  But 
the  loss  of  the  subject  kingdoms  left  Wessex  face  to  face 
with  the  invaders.  The  time  had  now  come  for  it  to  fight, 
not  for  supremacy,  but  for  life.  As  yet  the  land  'seemed 
paralyzed  by  terror.  With  the  exception  of  his  one  march 
on  Nottingham,  King  ^Ethelred  had  done  nothing  to  save 
his  under-kingdoms  from  the  wreck.  But  the  pirates  no 
sooner  pushed  up  Thames  to  Beading  in  871  than  the 
West-Saxons,  attacked  on  their  own  soil,  turned  fiercely  at 
bay.  A  desperate  attack  drove  the  Northmen  from  Ash- 
down  on  the  heights  that  overlooked  the  Vale  of  White 
Horse,  but  their  camp  in  the  tongue  of  land  between  the 


Wessex 


74 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


796- 
947. 


CHAP.  III.  Kennet  and  Thames  proved  impregnable.  J^thelred  died 
Wessex  in  tne  midst  of  tne  struggle»  an(*  nis  brother  Alfred,  who 
and  the  now  became  king,  bought  the  withdrawal  of  the  pirates 
and  a  few  years'  breathing-space  for  his  realm.  It  was 
easy  for  the  quick  eye  of  Alfred  to  see  that  the  Northmen 
had  withdrawn  simply  with  the  view  of  gaining  firmer 
footing  for  a  new  attack ;  three  years  indeed  had  hardly 
passed  before  Mercia  was  invaded  and  its  under-King 
driven  over  sea  to  make  place  for  a  tributary  of  the  in- 
vaders. From  Eepton  half  their  host  marched  northwards 
to  the  Tyne,  while  Guthrum  led  the  rest  into  his  kingdom 
of  East-Anglia  to  prepare  for  their  next  year's  attack  on 
Wessex.  In  876  his  fleet  appeared  before  Wareham,  and 
when  driven  thence  by  Alfred,  the  Northmen  threw  them- 
selves into  Exeter.  Their  presence  there  was  likely  to  stir 
arising  of  the  Welsh,  and  through  the  winter  Alfred  girded 
himself  for  this  new  peril.  At  break  of  spring  his  army 
closed  round  the  town,  a  hired  fleet  cruised  off  the  coast  to 
guard  against  rescue,  and  the  defeat  of  their  fellows  at  Ware- 
ham  in  an  attempt  to  relieve  them  drove  the  pirates  to 
surrender.  They  swore  to  leave  Wessex  and  withdrew  to 
Gloucester.  But  .ZElfred  had  hardly  disbanded  his  troops 
when  his  enemies,  roused  by  the  arrival  of  fresh  hordes  eager 
lor  plunder,  reappeared  at  Chippenham,  and  in  the  opening 
of  878  marched  ravaging  over  the  land.  The  surprize  of 
Wessex  was  complete,  and  for  a  month  or  two  the  general 
panic  left  no  hope  of  resistance.  Alfred,  with  his  small 
band  of  followers,  could  only  throw  himself  into  a  fort 
raised  hastily  in  the  isle  of  Athelney  among  the  marshes  of 
the  Parret,  a  position  from  which  he  could  watch  closely 
the  movements  of  his  foes.  But  with  the  first  burst  of 
.spring  he  called  the  thegns  of  Somerset  to  his  standard,  and 
still  gathering  troops  as  he  moved  marched  through  Wilt- 
shire on  the  Northmen.  He  found  their  host  at  Ediugton, 
defeated  it  in  a  great  battle,  and  after  a  siege  of  fourteen 
days  forced  them  to  surrender  and  to  bind  themselves  by  a 
solemn  peace  or  "  frith  "  at  Wedmore  in  Somerset.  In  form 


i.J  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449-1071. 


the  Peace  of  Wedmore  seemed  a  surrender  of  the  bulk  of  CHAP.  III. 
Britain  to  its  invaders.    All  Korthumbria,  all  East-Anglia,     Wessex 
all  Central  England  east  of  a  line  which  stretched  from  Northmen. 
Thames'  mouth  along  the  Lea  to  Bedford,  thence  along  the       796- 

94.T 

Ouse  to  Watling  Street,  and  by  Watling  Street  to  Chester, 
was  left  subject  to  the  Northmen.  Throughout  this  'Dane- 
lagh' —  as  it  was  called  —  the  conquerors  settled  down 
among  the  conquered  population  as  lords  of  the  soil,  thickly 
in  Northern  Britain,  more  thinly  in  its  central  districts, 
but  everywhere  guarding  jealously  their  old  isolation  and 
gathering  in  separate  '  heres  '  or  armies  round  towns  which 
were  only  linked  in  loose  confederacies.  The  peace  had 
in  fact  saved  little  more  than  Wessex  itself.  But  in 
saving  Wessex  it  saved  England.  The  spell  of  terror  was 
broken.  The  tide  of  invasion  turned.  From  an  attitude 
of  attack  the  Northmen  were  thrown  back  on  -an  attitude 
of  defence.  The  whole  reign  of  Alfred  was  a  preparation 
for  a  fresh  struggle  that  was  to  wrest  back  from  the 
pirates  the  land  they  had  won. 

What  really  gave  England  heart  for  such  a  struggle  sElfred. 
was  the  courage  and  energy  of  the  King  himself.  Alfred 
was  the  noblest  as  he  was  the  most  complete  embodi- 
ment of  all  that  is  great,  all  that  is  loveable,  in  the 
English  temper.  He  combined  as  no  other  man  has  ever 
combined  its  practical  energy,  its  patient  and  enduring 
force,  its  profound  sense  of  duty,  the  reserve  and  self-control 
that  steadies  in  it  a  wide  outlook  and  a  restless  daring, 
its  temperance  and  fairness,  its  frank  geniality,  its  sensi- 
tiveness to  affection,  its  poetic  tenderness,  its  deep  and 
passionate  religion.  Religion  indeed  was  the  groundwork 
of  Alfred's  character.  His  temper  was  instinct  with 
piety.  Everywhere  throughout  his  writings  that  remain 
to  us  the  name  of  God,  the  thought  of  God,  stir  him  to 
outbursts  of  ecstatic  adoration.  But  he  was  no  mere 
saint.  He  felt  none  of  that  scorn  of  the  world  about  him 
which  drove  the  nobler  souls  of  his  day  to  monastery  or 
hermitage.  Vexed  as  he  was  by  sickness  and  constant 


76  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.   pain,  his   temper  took  no  touch  of  asceticism.     His  rare 
geniality,  a  peculiar  elasticity  and  mobility  of  nature,  gave 


Northmen  c°l°ur  an^  charm  to  his  life.  A  sunny  frankness  and 
7"^i_  '  openness  of  spirit  breathes  in  the  pleasant  chat  of  his 
947-  books,  and  what  he  was  in  his  books  he  showed  himself  in 
his  daily  converse.  Alfred  was  in  truth  an  artist,  and 
both  the  lights  and-  shadows  of  his  life  were  those  of  the 
artistic  temperament.  His  love  of  books,  his  love  of 
strangers,  his  questionings  of  travellers  and  scholars,  betray 
an  imaginative  restlessness  that  longs  to  break  out  of  the 
narrow  world  of  experience  which  hemmed  him  in.  At 
one  time  he  jots  down  news  of  a  voyage  to  the  unknown 
seas  of.  the  north.  At  another  he  listens  to  tidings  which 
his  envoys  bring  back  from  the  churches  of  Malabar. 
And  side  by  side  with  this  restless  outlook  of  the  artistic 
nature  he  showed  its  tenderness  and  susceptibility,  its 
vivid  apprehension  of  unseen  danger,  its  craving  for  affec- 
•  tion,  its  sensitiveness  to  wrong.  It  was  with  himself  rather 
than  with  his  reader  that  he  communed  as  thoughts  of  the 
foe  without,  of  ingratitude  and  opposition  within,  broke 
the  calm  pages  of  Gregory  or  Boethius.  "  Oh,  what  a 
happy  man  was  he,"  he  cries  once,  "  that  man  that  had  a 
naked  sword  hanging  over  his  head  from  a  single  thread  ; 
so  as  to  me  it  always  did  !  "  "  Desirest  thou  power  ?  "  he 
asks  at  another  time.  "But  thou  shalt  never  obtain  it 
without  sorrows  —  sorrows  from  strange  folk,  and  yet 
keener  sorrows  from  thine  own  kindred."  "  Hardship  and 
sorrow  !  "  he  breaks  out  again,  "  not  a  king  but  would 
wish  to  be  without  these  if  he  could.  But  I  know  that  he 
cannot  !  "  The  loneliness  which  breathes  in  words  like 
these  has  often  begotten  in  great  rulers  a  cynical  contempt 
of  men  and  the  judgements  of  men.  But  cynicism  found 
no  echo  in  the  large  and  sympathetic  temper  of  JElfred. 
He  not  only  longed  for  the  love  of  his  subjects,  but  for 
the  remembrance  of  "  generations  "  to  come.  Nor  did  his 
inner  gloom  or  anxiety  check  for  an  instant  his  vivid  and 
versatile  activity.  To  the  scholars  he  gathered  round  him 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071.  77 

he  seemed  the  very  type  of  a  scholar,  snatching  every  hour  CHAP.  ill. 
he  could  find  to  read  or  listen  to  books  read  to  him.     The     wessex 
singers  of  his  court  found  in  him  a  brother  singer,  gathering  No?thmen. 
the  old  songs  of  his  people  to  teach  them  to  his  children,       7"^_ 
breaking  his  renderings  from  the  Latin  with  simple  verse,       9A7- 
solacing  himself  in  hours  of  depression  with  the  music  of 
the  Psalms.      He  passed  from  court  and  study  to  plan 
buildings  and  instruct  craftsmen  in  gold- work,  to  teach 
even  falconers  and  dog-keepers  their  business.     But  all  this 
versatility  and  ingenuity  was  controlled  by  a  cool  good 
sense.     Alfred  was  a  thorough  man  of  business.     He  was 
careful  of  detail,  laborious,  methodical.     He  carried  in  his 
bosom  a  little  handbook  in  which  he  noted  things  as  they 
struck  him — now  a  bit  of  family  genealogy,  now  a  prayer, 
now  such  a  story  as  that  of  Ealdhelm  playing  minstrel  on 
the  bridge.     Each  hour  of  the  day  had  its  appointed  task ; 
there  was  the  same  order  in  the  division  of  his  revenue  and 
in  the  arrangement  of  his  court. 

Wide  however  and  various  as  was  the  King's  temper, 
its  range  was  less  wonderful  than  its  harmony.  Of  the 
narrowness,  of  the  want  of  proportion,  of  the  predominance 
of  one  quality  over  another  which  goes  commonly  with  an 
intensity  of  moral  purpose  Alfred  showed  not  a  trace. 
Scholar  and  soldier,  artist  and  man  of  business,  poet  and 
saint,  his  character  kept  that  perfect  balance  which  charms 
us  in  no  other  Englishman  save  Shakspere.  But  full 
and  harmonious  as  his  temper  was,  it  was  the  temper  of  a 
king.  Every  power  was  bent  to  the  work  of  rule.  His 
practical  energy  found  scope  for  itself  in  the  material  and 
administrative  restoration  of  the  wasted  land.  His  intel- 
lectual activity  breathed  fresh  life  into  education  and 
literature.  His  capacity  for  inspiring  trust  and  affection 
drew  the  hearts  of  Englishmen  to  a  common  centre,  and 
began  the  upbuilding  of  a  new  England.  And  all  was 
guided,  controlled,  ennobled  by  a  single  aim.  "  So  long  as 
I  have  lived,"  said  the  King  as  life  closed  about  him,  "  I 
have  striven  to  live  worthily."  Little  by  little  men  came 


78  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK. 

CHAP.  III.  to  know  what  such  a  life  of  worthiness  meant.     Little  by 
Wessex     little  they  came  to  recognize  in  JElfred  a  ruler  of  higher 

Northmen  an(^  no^er  stamp  than  the  world  had  seen.  Never  had  it 
j£"o_  seen  a  King  who  lived  solely  for  the  good  of  his  people. 
94 7-  Never  had  it  seen  a  ruler  who  set  aside  every  personal 
aim  to  devote  himself  solely  to  the  welfare  of  those  whom 
he  ruled.  It  was  this  grand  self-mastery  that  gave  him  his 
power  over  the  men  about  him.  Warrior  and  conqueror 
as  he  was,  they  saw  him  set  aside  at  thirty  the  warrior's  . 
dream  of  conquest;  and  the  self-renouncement  of  Wed- 
more  struck  the  key-note  of  his  reign.  But  still  more  is 
it  this  height  and  singleness  of  purpose,  this  absolute 
concentration  of  the  noblest  faculties  to  the  noblest  aim, 
that  lifts  Alfred  out  of  the  narrow  bounds  of  Wessex.  It' 
the  sphere  of  his  action  seems  too  small  to  justify  the  com- 
parison of  him  with  the  few  whom  the  world  owns  as  its 
greatest  men,  he  rises  to  their  level  in  the  moral  grandeur 
of  his  life.  And  it  is  this  which  has  hallowed  his  memory 
among  his  own  English  people.  "  I  desire,"  said  the  King 
in  some  of  his  latest  words,  "  I  desire  to  leave  to  the  men 
that  come  after  me  a  remembrance  of  me  in  good  works." 
His  aim  has  been  more  than  fulfilled.  His  memory  has 
come  down  to  us  with  a  living  distinctness  through  the 
mists  of  exaggeration  and  legend  which  time  gathered 
round  it.  The  instinct  of  the  people  has  clung  to  him 
with  a  singular  affection.  The  love  which  he  won  a  thousand 
years  ago  has  lingered  round  his  name  from  that  day  to 
this.  While  every  other  name  of  those  earlier  times  has 
all  but  faded  from  the  recollection  of  Englishmen,  that  of 
Alfred  remains  familiar  to  every  English  child. 
English  The  secret  of  Alfred's  government  lay  in  his  own  vivid 
tre'  energy.  He  could  hardly  have  chosen  braver  or  more 
active  helpers  than  those  whom  he  employed  both  in  his 
political  and  in  his  educational  efforts.  The  children 
whom  he  trained  to  rule  proved  the  ablest  rulers  of  their 
time.  But  at  the  outset  of  his  reign  he  stood  alone,  and 
what  work  was  to  be  done  was  done  by  the  King  himself. 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449- -1071.  79 

His  first  efforts  were  directed  to  the  material  restoration  CHAP.  III. 
of  his  realm.  The  burnt  and  wasted  country  saw  its  towns  wessex 
built  again,  forts  erected  in  positions  of  danger,  new  abbeys  Northmen 
founded,  the  machinery  of  justice  and  government  restored,  7~^_ 
the  laws  codified  and  amended.  Still  more  strenuous  were  9^Z* 
Alfred's  efforts  for  its  moral  and  intellectual  restoration. 
Even  in  Mercia  and  Northumbria  the  pirates'  sword  had  left 
few  survivors  of  the  schools  of  Ecgberht  or  Baeda,  and 
matters  were  even  worse  in  Wessex  which  had  been  as  yet 
the  most  ignorant  of  the  English  kingdoms.  "  When  I  began 
to  reign,"  said  Alfred,  "  I  cannot  remember  one  priest  south 
of  the  Thames  who  could  render  his  service-book  into 
English."  For  instructors  indeed  he  could  find  only  a 
few  Mercian  prelates  and  priests  with  one  Welsh  bishop, 
Asser.  "  Formerly,"  the  King  writes  bitterly,  "  men  came 
hither  from  foreign  lands  to  seek  for  instruction,  and  now 
when  we  desire  it  we  can  only  obtain  it  from  abroad." 
But  his  mind  was  far  from  being  prisoned  within  his  own 
island.  He  sent  a  Norwegian  ship-master  to  explore  the 
White  Sea,  and  Wulfstan  to  trace  the  coast  of  Esthonia ; 
envoys  bore  his  presents  to  the  churches  of  India  and 
Jerusalem,  and  an  annual  mission  carried  Peter's-pence 
to  Rome.  But  it  was  with  the  Franks  that  his  "inter- 
course was  closest,  and  it  was  from  them  that  he  drew 
the  scholars  to  aid  him  in  his  work  of  education.  A  scholar 
named  Grimbald  came  from  St.  Omer  to  preside  over  his 
new  abbey  at  Winchester;  and  John,  the  old  Saxon,  was 
fetched  from  the  abbey  of  Corbey  to  rule  a  monastery  and 
school  that  Alfred's  gratitude  for  his  deliverance  from  the 
Danes  raised  in  the  marshes  of  Athelney.  The  real  work 
however  to  be  done  was  done,  not  by  these  teachers  but 
by  the  King  himself.  ^Elfred  established  a  school  for  the 
young  nobles  in  his  court,  and  it  was  to  the  need  of  books 
for  these  scholars  in  their  own  tongue  that  we  owe  his 
most  remarkable  literary  effort.  He  took  his  books  as  he 
found  them — they  were  the  popular  manuals  of  his  age — 
the  Consolation,  of  Boethius,  the  Pastoral  of  Pope  Gregory, 


80 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP  III    the  compilation  of  Orosius,  then  the  one  accessible  hand- 
f  U11ivel'sal   history>    and    the    history    of  his  own 


Wsx 

and  the 

Northmen. 


and  the     rteoole  bv  Bseda.     He  translated  these  works  into  English. 
Jr  .    * 


796- 
947. 


. 

but  he  was  far  more  than  a  translator,  he  was  an  editor 

for  the  people.  Here  he  omitted,  there  he  expanded.  He 
enriched  Orosius  by  a  sketch  of  the  new  geographical 
discoveries  in  the  North.  He  gave  a  West-Saxon  form  to 
his  selections  from  Bseda.  In  one  place  he  stops  to  explain 
his  theory  of  government,  his  wish  for  a  thicker  popula- 
tion, his  conception  of  national  welfare  as  consisting  in 
a  due  balance  of  priest,  soldier,  and  churl.  The  mention 
of  Nero  spurs  him  to  an  outbreak  on  the  abuses  of 
power.  The  cold  Providence  of  Boethius  gives  way  to  an 
enthusiastic  acknowledgement  of  the  goodness  of  God. 
As  he  writes,  his  large-hearted  nature  flings  off  its  royal 
mantle,  and  he  talks  as  a  man  to  men.  "Do  not  blame  me," 
he  prays  with  a  charming  simplicity,  "  if  any  know  Latin 
better  than  I,  for  every  man  must  say  what  he  says  and  do 
what  he  does  according  to.  his  ability."  But  simple  as  was 
his  aim,  Alfred  changed  the  whole  front  of  our  literature. 
Before  him,  England  possessed  in  her  own  tongue  one 
great  poem  and  a  train  of  ballads  and  battle-songs.  Prose 
she  had  none.  The  mighty  roll  of  the  prose  books  that 
fill  her  libraries  begins  with  the  translations  of  Alfred, 
and  above  all  with  the  chronicle  of  his  reign.  It  seems 
likely  that  the  King's  rendering  of  Bseda's  history  gave  the 
first  impulse  towards  the  compilation  of  what  is  known  as 
the  English  or  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  which  was  certainly 
thrown  into  its  present  form  during  his  reign.  The  meagre 
lists  of  the  Kings  of  Wessex  and  the  bishops  of  Win- 
chester, which  had  been  preserved  from  older  times,  were 
roughly  expanded  into  a  national  history  by  insertions 
from  Ba?da  :  but  it  is  when  it  reaches  the  reign  of  Alfred 
that  the  chronicle  suddenly  widens  into  the  vigorous 
narrative,  full  of  life  and  originality,  that  marks  the  gift 
of  a  new  power  to  the  English  tongue.  Varying  as  it  does 
from  age  to  age  in  historic  value,  it  remains  the  first 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  81 

vernacular  history  of  any  Teutonic  people,  and  save  for  CHAP.  III. 
the  Gothic   translations  of  Ulfilas,  the  earliest  and  most     wessex 
venerable  monument  of  Teutonic  prose.  Ncrthmeen. 

But  all  this  literary  activity  was  only  a  part  of  that  7^_ 
general  upbuilding  of  Wessex  by  which  Alfred  was  pre-  947' 
paring  for  a  fresh  contest  with  the  stranger.  He  knew 
that  the  actual  winning  back  of  the  Danelagh  must  be  a 
work  of  the  sword,  and  through  these  long  years  of  peace 
he  was  busy  with  the  creation  of  such  a  force  as  might 
match  that  of  the  Northmen.  A  fleet  grew  out  of  the 
little  squadron  which  ^Elfred  had  been  forced  to  man 
with  Frisian  seamen.  The  national  fyrd  or  levy  of  all 
freemen  at  the  King's  call  was  reorganized.  It  was  now 
divided  into  two  halves,  one  of  which  served  in  the  field 
while  the  other  guarded  its  own  burhs  and  townships  and 
served  to  relieve  its  fellow  when  the  men's  forty  days  cf 
service  were  ended.  A  more  disciplined  military  force 
was  provided  by  subjecting  all  owners  of  five  hides  of 
land  to  thegn-service,  a  step  which  recognized  the  change 
that  had  now  substituted  the  thegn  for  the  eorl  and  in 
which  we  see  the  beginning  of  a  feudal  system.  How 
effective  these  measures  were  was  seen  when  the  new 
resistance  they  met  on  the  Continent  drove  the  Northmen 
to  a  fresh  attack  on  Britain.  In  893  a  large  fleet  steered 
for  the  Andreds weald,  while  the  sea-king  Hasting  entered 
the  Thames.  Alfred  held  both  at  bay  through  the  year 
till  the  men  of  the  Danelagh  rose  at  their  comrades'  call. 
Wessex  stood  again  front  to  front  with  the  Northmen.  But 
the  King's  measures  had  made  the  realm  stfong  enough  to 
set  aside  its  old  policy  of  defence  for  one  of  vigorous 
attack.  His  son  Eadward  and  his  son-in-law  ^Ethelred, 
•whom  he  had  set  as  Ealdorman  over  what  remained  of 
Mercia,  showed  themselves  as  skilful  and  active  as  the 
King.  The  aim  of  the  Northmen  was  to  rouse  again  the 
hostility  of  the  Welsh,  but  while  /Elfred  held  Exeter 
against  their  fleet  Eadward  and  ^Ethelred  caught  their  army 
near  the  Severn  and  overthrew  it  with  a  vast  slaughter  at 


82  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III.  Buttington.  The  destruction  of  their  camp  on  the  Lea  by 
TV^Jex  the  united  English  forces  ended  the  war  ;  in  897  Hasting 
and  the  ao-ajn  withdrew  across  the  Channel,  and  the  Danelagh  made 

Northmen,      o  111  -n  -,  • 

796-  Peace-  ^  was  with  tne  Peace  ne  nacl  won  stlli  aoout  him 
9*7.  that  Alfred  died,  in  901,  and  warrior  as  his  son  Eadw^rd 
had  shown  himself,  he  clung  to  his  father's  policy  of  rest. 
It  was  not  till  910  that  a  fresh  rising  of  the  Northmen 
forced  Alfred's  children  to  gird  themselves  to  the  conquest 
of  the  Danelagh. 

Eachoard       "While  Eadward  bridled  East-Anglia  his  sister  ^Ethelflaed, 
the  Elder.  ^  whoge  hands   ^theireci's    de3itk   left   English  Mercia, 

attacked  the  "  Five  Boroughs,"  a  rude  confederacy  which 
had  taken  the  place  of  the  older  Mercian  kingdom.  Derby 
represented  the  original  Mercia  on  the  upper  Trent,  Lincoln 
the  Lindiswaras,  Leicester  the  Middle-English,  Stamford 
the  province  of  t^c  Gyrwas,  Nottingham  probably  that  of 
the  Southwnbrians.  Each  of  these  "  Five  Boroughs  "  seems 
to  have  been  ruled  by  its  earl  with  his  separate  "  host ; " 
within  each  twelve  "  lawmen  "  administered  Danish  law, 
while  a  common  justice-court  existed  for  the  whole  con- 
federacy. In  her  attack  on  this  powerful  league  ^Ethel- 
fleed  abandoned  the  older  strategy  of  battle  and  raid  for 
that  of  siege  and  fortress-building.  Advancing  along  the 
line  of  Trent,  she  fortified  Tamworth  and  fStafford  on 
its  head- waters ;  when  a  rising  in  Gwent  called  her  back 
to  the  Welsh  border,  her  army  stormed  Brecknock ;  and 
its  king  no  sooner  fled  for  shelter  to  the  Northmen  in 
whose  aid  he  had  risen  than  TEthelflaed  at  once  closed 
on  Derby.  Raids  from  Middle-England  failed  to  draw  the 
Lady  of  Mercia  from  her  prey  ;  and  Derby  was  hardly  her 
own  when,  turning  southward,  she  forced  the  surrender  of 
Leicester.  The  brilliancy  of  his  sister's  exploits  had  as 
yet  eclipsed  those  of  the  King,  but  the  son  of  Alfred  was 
a  vigorous  and  active  ruler  ;  he  had  repulsed  a  dangerous 
inroad  of  the  Northmen  from  France,  summoned  no  doubt 
by  the  cry  of  distress  from  their  brethren  in  England,  and 
had  bridled  East-Anglia  to  the  south  by  the  erection  of 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  83 

forts  at  Hertford  and  Witham.     On  the  death  of  JEthelflsed  CHAP.  III. 
iu  918  he  came  boldly  to  the  front.     Annexing  Mercia  to     wTsTex 
Wessex,  and  thus  gathering  the  whole  strength   of  the  NorthmeV 
kingdom  into  his  single  hand,  he  undertook  the  systematic       7~^_ 
reduction  of  the  Danelagh.  South  of  the  Middle-English  and      947' 
the  Fens  lay  a  tract  watered  by  the  Ouse  and  the  Nen — 
originally  the  district   of  a  tribe  known  as  the  South- 
English,  and  now,  like  the  Eive  Boroughs  of  the  north, 
grouped   round  the  towns  of  Bedford,   Huntingdon,  and 
Northampton.      The  reduction  of  these  was  followed  by 
that  of  East-Anglia  ;  the  Northmen  of  the  Fens  submitted 
with    Stamford,   the    Southumbrians   with    Nottingham. 
Eadward's  Mercian  troops  had  already  seized  Manchester ; 
he  himself  was  preparing  to  complete  his  conquests,  when 
in  924  the  whole  of  the  North  suddenly  laid  itself  at  his 
feet.      Not  merely  Northumbria  but  the  Scots   and   the 
Britons  of  Strathclyde  "  chose  him  to  father  and  lord." 

The  triumph  was  his  last  Eadward  died  in  925,  but  the  ^Ethelstan. 
reign  of  his  son  Jithelstan,  Alfred's  golden-haired  grandson 
whom  the  King  had  girded  as  a  child  with  a  sword  set  in  a 
golden  scabbard  and  a  gem-studded  belt,  proved  even  more 
glorious  than  his  own.  In  spite  of  its  submission  the 
North  had  still  to  be  won.  Dread  of  the  Northmen  had 
drawn  Scot  and  Cumbrian  to  their  acknowledgement  of 
Eadward's  overlordship,  but  ^Ethelstan  no  sooner  incor- 
porated Northumbria  with  his  dominions  than  dread  of 
Wessex  took  the  place  of  dread  of  the  Danelagh.  The 
Scot  King  Constantine  organized  a  league  of  Scot,  Cum- 
brian, and  Welshman  with  the  Northmen.  The  league 
was  broken  by  Atheist  an's  rapid  action  in  926;  the  North- 
Welsh  were  forced  to  pay  annual  tribute,  to  march  iu  his 
armies,  and  to  attend  his  councils ;  the  West- Welsh  of 
Cornwall  were  reduced  to  a  like  vassalage,  and  finally 
driven  from  Exeter,  which  they  had  shared  till  then  with 
its  English  inhabitants.  But  ten  years  later  the  same 
league  called  vEthelstan  again  to  the  North ;  and  though 
Constantine  was  punished  by  an  army  which  wasted  his 


84  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  kingdom  while  a  fleet  ravaged  its  coasts  to  Caithness  the 
Wessex  English  army  had  no  sooner  withdrawn  than  Northumbria 

Northmen  rose  ^n  ^37  at  the  appearance  of  a  fleet  of  pirates  from 
796-  Ireland  under  the  sea-king  Anlaf  in  the  Humber.  Scot  and 
e47-  Cumbrian  fought  beside  the  Northmen  against  the  West- 
Saxon  King ;  but  his  victory  at  Brunanburh  crushed  the 
confederacy  and  won  peace  till  his  death.  His  sonEadmund 
was  but  a  boy  at  his  accession  in  940,  and  the  North  again 
rose  in  revolt.  The  men  of  the  Five  Boroughs  joined  their 
kinsmen  in  Northumbria ;  once  Eadmund  was  driven  to  a 
peace  which  left  him  King  but  south  of  the  Watling 
Street ;  and  only  years  of  hard  fighting  again  laid  the 
Danelagh  at  his  feet. 

Dunstan.  But  policy  was  now  to  supplement  the  work  of  the  sword. 
The  completion  of  the  West-Saxon  realm  was  in  fact 
reserved  for  the  hands,  not  of  a  king  or  warrior,  but  of  a 
priest.  Dunstan  stands  first  in  the  line  of  ecclesiastical 
statesmen  who  counted  among  them  Lanfranc  and  Wolsey 
and  ended  in  Laud.  He  is  still  more  re'markable  in  him- 
self, in  his  own  vivid  personality  after  eight  centuries  of 
revolution  and  change.  He  was  born  in  the  little  hamlet 
of  Glastonbury,  the  home  of  his  father,  Heorstan,  a  man  of 
wealth  and  brother  of  the  bishops  of  Wells  and  of  Winches- 
ter. It  must  have  been  in  his  father's  hall  that  the  fair, 
diminutive  boy,  with  his  scant  but  beautiful  hair,  caught 
his  love  for  "the  vain  songs  of  heathendom,  the  trifling 
legends,  the  funeral  chaunts,"  which  afterwards  roused 
against  him  the  charge  of  sorcery.  Thence  too  he  might 
have  derived  his  passionate  love  of  music,  and  his  custom 
of  carrying  his  harp  in  hand  on  journey  or  visit.  Wan- 
dering scholars  of  Ireland  had  left  their  books  in  the 
monastery  of  Glastonbury,  as  they  left  them  along  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube ;  and  Dunstan  plunged  into  the 
study  of  sacred  and  profane  letters  fill  his  brain  broke 
down  in  delirium.  So  famous  became  his  knowledge 
in  the  neighbourhood  that  news  of  it  reached  the  court 
of  ^Ethelstan,  but  his  appearance  there  was  the  signal  for 


i.J  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  85 

a  burst  of  ill-will  among  the  courtiers.     They  drove  him  CHAP.  III. 
from  the  king's   train,  threw  him  from  his  horse  as  he     wessex 
passed  through  the  marshes,  and  with  the  wild  passion  of  Northmen, 
their  age  trampled  him  under  foot  in  the  mire.     The  out- 
ra^e  ended  in  fever,  and  Dunstan  rose  from  his  sick-bed  a 

O 

monk.  But  the  monastic  'profession  was  then  little  more 
than  a  vow  of  celibacy  and  his  devotion  took  no  ascetic  turn. 
His  nature  in  fact  was  sunny,  versatile,  artistic  ;  full  of 
strong  affections,  and  capable  of  inspiring  others  with 
affections  as  strong.  Quick-witted,  of  tenacious  memory, 
a  ready  and  fluent  speaker,  gay  and  genial  in  address,  an 
artist,  a  musician,  he  was  at  the  same  time  an  indefatiga- 
ble worker  at  books,  at  building,  at  handicraft.  As  his 
sphere  began  to  widen  we  see  him  followed  by  a  train 
of  pupils,  busy  with  literature,  writing,  harping,  painting, 
designing.  One  morning  a  lady  summons  him  to  her 
house  to  design  a  robe  which  she  is  embroidering,  and  as 
he  bends  with  her  maidens  over  their  toil  his  harp  hung 
upon  the  wall  sounds  without  mortal  touch  tones  which 
the  excited  ears  around  frame  into  a  joyous  antiphon. 

From  this  scholar-life  Dunstan  was  called  to  a  wider  Conquest 
sphere  of  activity  by  the  accession  of  Eadmund.  But  the  °f  the 
old  jealousies  revived  at  his  reappearance  at  court,  and 
counting  the  game  lost  Dunstan  prepared  again  to  with- 
draw. The  King  had  spent  the  day  in  the  chase  ;  the  red 
deer  which  he  was  pursuing  dashed  over  Cheddar  cliffs, 
and  his  horse  only  checked  itself  on  the  brink  of  the 
ravine  at  the  moment  when  Eadmund  in  the  bitterness  of 
death  was  repenting  of  his  injustice  to  Dunstan.  He  was 
at  once  summoned  on  the  King's  return.  "  Saddle  your 
horse,"  said  Eadmund,  "  and  ride  with  me."  The  royal 
train  swept  over  the  marshes  to  his  home ;  and  the  King, 
bestowing  on  him  the  kiss  of  peace,  seated  him  in  the 
abbot's  chair  as  Abbot  of  Glastonbury.  Dunstan  became 
one  of  Eadmund's  councillors  and  his  hand  was  seen  in  the 
settlement  of  the  Nerth.  It  was  the  hostility  of  the  states 
around  it  to  the  West-Saxon  rule  which  had  roused  so 

VOL.  I.— 7 


86  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.     [BOOK  I. 

CHAP.  III.  often  revolt  in  the  Danelagh  ;  but  from  this  time  we  hear 
Wessex  nothing  more  of  the  hostility  of  Bernicia,  while  Strathclyde 

Northmen  was  conquered  by  Eadmund  and  turned  adroitly  to 
796_  account  in  winning  over  the  Scots  to  his  cause.  The 
9^'  greater  part  of  it  was  granted  to  their  King  Malcolm  on 
terms  that  he  should  be  Eadmund's  fellow-worker  by  sea 
and  land.  The  league  of  Scot  and  Briton  was  thus  finally 
broken  up,  and  the  fidelity  of  the  Scots  secured  by  their 
need  of  help  in  holding  down  their  former  ally.  The 
settlement  was  soon  troubled  by  the  young  King's  death. 
As  he  feasted  at  Pucklechurch  in  the  May  of  946,  Leofa, 
a  robber  whom  Eadmund  had  banished  from  the  land, 
entered  the  hall,  seated  himself  at  the  royal  board,  and 
drew  sword  on  the  cup-bearer  when  he  bade  him  retire. 
The  King  sprang  in  wrath  to  his  thegn's  aid,  and  seizing 
Leofa  by  the  hair,  flung  him  to  the  ground;  but  in  the 
struggle  the  robber  drove  his  dagger  to  Eadmund's  heart. 
His  death  at  once  stirred  fresh  troubles  in  the  North ;  the 
Danelagh  rose  against  his  brother  and  successor,  Eadred, 
and  some  years  of  hard  fighting  were  needed  before  it 
was  again  driven  to  own  the  English  supremacy.  But 
with  its  submission  in  954  the  work  of  conquest  was  done- 
Dogged  as  his  fight  had  been,  the  Northman  at  last  owned 
himself  beaten.  From  the  moment  of  Eadred's  final 
triumph  all  resistance  came  to  an  end.  The  Danelagh 
ceased  to  be  a  force  in  English  politics.  North  might  part 
anew  from  South ;  men  of  Yorkshire  might  tigain  cross 
swords  with  men  of  Hampshire ;  but  their  strife  was 
henceforth  a  local  strife  between  men  of  the  same  people  ; 
it  was  a  strife  of  Englishmen  with  Englishmen,  and  not  of 
Englishmen  with  Northmen. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FEUDALISM  AND  THE  MONARCHY. 
954—1071. 

THE  fierceness  of  the  Northman's  onset  had  hidden  the 
real  character  of  his  attack.  To  the  men  who  first  fronted 
the  pirates  it  seemed  as  though  the  story  of  the  world  had 
gone  back  to  the  days  when  the  German  barbarians  first 
broke  in  upon  the  civilized  world.  It  was  so  above  all  in 
Britain.  All  that  tradition  told  of  the  Englishmen's  own 
attack  on  the  island  was  seen  in  the  Northmen's  attack  on 
it.  Boats  of  marauders  from  the  northern  seas  again 
swarmed  off  the  British  coast ;  church  and  town  were  again 
the  special  object  of  attack ;  the  invaders  again  settled 
on  the  conquered  soil  ;  heathendom  again  proved  stronger 
than  the  faith  of  Christ.  But  the  issues  of  the  two  at- 
tacks showed  the  mighty  difference  between  them.  When 
the  English  ceased  from  their  onset  upon  Roman  Britain 
lioman  Britain  had  disappeared,  and  a  new  people  of  con- 
querors stood  alone  on  the  conquered  land.  The  Northern 
storm  on  the  other  hand  left  land,  people,  government 
unchanged.  England  remained  a  country  of  Englishmen. 
The  conquerors  sank  into  the  mass  of  the  conquered,  and 
Woden  yielded  without  a  struggle  to  Christ.  The  strife 
between  Briton  and  Englishman  was  in  fact  a  strife  between 
men  of  different  races,  while  the  strife  between  Northman 
and  Englishman  was  a  strife  between  men  whose  race  was 
the  same.  The  followers  of  Hengest  or  of  Ida  were  men 


88 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         [BOOK 


iv    utterly  alien  from  the  life  of  Britain,  strange  to  its  arts,  its 

L  HAT*.   1 V .  J  i  •    i 

— .       culture,  its  wealth,  as  they  were   strange   to  the    social 
Feandathem  degradation  which  Rome    had  brought    on   its  province. 
-ky'  But  the  Northman  was  little  more  than  an  Englishman 
1071".     bringing  back  to  an  England  which  had  drifted  far  from  its 
origin  the  barbaric  life  of  its  earliest  forefathers.    Nowhere 
throughout  Europe  was  the  fight  so  fierce,  because  nowhere 
else  were  the  fighters  men  of  one  blood  and  one  speech. 
But  just  for  this  reason  the  union  of  the  combatants  was 
nowhere  so  peaceful  or  so  complete.     The  victory  of  the 
house  of  Alfred  only  hastened  a  process  of  fusion  which 
was  already  going  on.      From  the  first  moment  of   his 
settlement  in  the    Danelagh    the    Northman    had    been 
passing  into  an  Englishman.     The  settlers  were  few  ;  they 
were  scattered  among  a  large  population ;    in  tongue,  in 
manner,  in  institutions   there    was    little    to    distinguish 
them  from  the  men  among  whom  they  dwelt.     Moreover 
their  national  temper  helped  on  the  process  of  assimila- 
tion.    Even  in  France,  where  difference  of  language  and 
difference  of  custom  seemed  to  interpose  an  impassable 
barrier  between  the  Northman  settled  in  Normandy  and 
his  neighbours,  he  was  fast  becoming  a  Frenchman.     In 
England,  where  no  such  barriers  existed,  the  assimilation  was 
even  quicker.     The  two  peoples  soon  became  confounded. 
In  a  few  years  a  Northman  in  blood  was  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  and  another  Northman  in  blood  was  Archbishop 
of  York. 

The  three  The  fusion  might  have  been  delayed  if  riot  wholly  averted 
Northern  ^y  continued  descents  from  the  Scandinavian  homeland. 
But  with  Eadred's  reign  the  long  attack  which  the  North- 
man had  directed  against  western  Christendom  came,  for  a 
while  at  least,  to  an  end.  On  the  world  which  it  assailed 
its  results  had  been  immense.  It  hadfutterly  changed  the 
face  of  the  west.  The  empire  of  Ecgberht,  the  empire  of 
Charles  the  Great,  had  been  alike  dashed  to  pieces.  But 
break  and  change  as  it  might,  Christendom  had  held  the 
Northmen  at  bay.  The  Scandinavian  power  which  had 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071.  89 

grown  up  on  the  western  seas  had  disappeared  like  a  dream.  CHAP.  IV. 
In  Ireland  the  Northman's  rule  had  dwindled  to  the  hold-  Feudalism 
ing  of  a  few  coast  towns.  In  France  his  settlements  had  Monarchy, 
shrunk  to  the  one  settlement  of  Normandy.  In  England  95^- 
every  Northman  was  a  subject  of  the  English  King.  Even  1^f- 
the  Empire  of  the  Seas  had  passed  from  the  Sea-Kings' 
hands.  It  was  an  English  and  not  a  Scandinavian  fleet 
that  for  fifty  years  to  come  held  mastery  in  the  English 
and  the  Irish  Channels.  With  Eadred's  victory  in  fact  the 
struggle  seemed  to  have  reached  its  close.  Stray  pirate 
boats  still  hung  off  headland  and  coast ;  stray  vikings  still 
shoved  out  in  spring-tide  to  gather  booty.  But  for  nearly 
half-a-century  to  come  no  great  pirate  fleet  made  its  way 
to  the  west,  or  landed  on  the  shores  of  Britain.  The 
energies  of  the  Northmen  were  in  fact  absorbed  through. 
these  years  in  the  political  changes  of  Scandinavia  itself. 
The  old  isolation  of  fiord  from  fiord  and  dale  from  dale 
was  breaking  down.  The  little  commonwealths  which  had 
held  so  jealously  aloof  from  each  other  were*  being  drawn 
together  whether  they  would  or  no.  In  each  of  the  three 
regions  of  the  north  great  kingdoms  were  growing  up.  In 
Sweden  King  Eric  made  himself  lord  of  the  petty  states 
about  him.  In  Denmark  King  Gorm  built  up  in  the  same 
way  a  monarchy  of  the  Danes.  Norway,  though  it  lingered 
long,  followed  at  last  in  the  same  track.  Legend  told  how 
one  of  its  many  rulers,  Harald  of  Westfold,  sent  his  men 
to  bring  him  Gytha  of  Hordaland,  a  girl  he  had  ch'osen  for 
wife,  and  how  Gytha  sent  his  men  back  again  with  taunts 
at  his  petty  realm.  The  taunts  went  home,  and  Harald 
vowed  never  to  clip  or  comb  his  hair  till  he  had  made  all 
Norway  his  own.  So  every  springtide  came  war  and  host- 
ing, harrying  and  burning,  till  a  great  fight  at  Hafursfiord 
settled  the  matter,  and  Harald  "  Ugly-Head  "  as  men  called 
him  while  the  strife  lasted  was  free  to  shear  his  locks  again 
and  became  Harald  "  Fair-Hair."  The  Northmen  loved  no 
master,  and  a  great  multitude  fled  out  of  the  country,  some 
pushing  as  far  as  Iceland  and  colonizing  it,  some  swarming 


90 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Feudalism 

and  the 
Monarchy. 

954- 

1071. 


England 
and  its 
King. 


to  the  Orkneys  and  Hebrides  till  Harald  harried  them  out 
again  and  the  sea-kings  sailed  southward  to  join  Guthrurn's 
host  in  the  Rhine  country  or  follow  Eolf  to  his  fights  oil 
the  Seine.  But  little  by  little  the  land  settled  down  into 
order,  and  the  three  Scandinavian  realms  gathered  strength 
for  new  efforts  which  were  to  leave  their  mark  on  our  after 
history. 

But  of  the  new  danger  which  threatened  it  in  this  union 
of  the  north  England  knew  little.  The  storm  seemed  to 
have  drifted  utterly  away;  and  the  land  passed  from  a 
hundred  years  of  ceaseless  conflict  into  a  time  of  peace. 
Here  as  elsewhere  the  Northman  had  failed  in  his  purpose 
of  conquest ;  but  here  as  elsewhere  he  had  done  a  mighty 
work.  In  shattering  the  empire  of  Charles  the  Great  he 
had  given  birth  to  the  nations  of  modern  Europe.  In  his 
long  strife  with  Englishmen  he  had  created  an  English 
people.  The  national  union  which  had  been  brought  about 
for  a  moment  by  the  sword  of  Ecgberht  /  was  a  union  of 
sheer  force  which  broke  down  at  the  first  blow  of  the  sea- 
robbers.  The  black  boats  of  the  Northmen  were  so  many 
wedges  that  split  up  the  fabric  of  the  roughly-built  realm. 
But  the  very  agency  which  destroyed  the  new  England 
was  destined  to  bring  it  back  again,  and  to  breathe  into  it 
a  life  that  made  its  union  real.  The  peoples  who  had  so 
long  looked  on  each  other  as  enemies  found  themselves 
fronted  by  a  common  foe.  They  were  thrown  together  by 
a  common  danger  and  the  need  of  a  common  defence. 
Their  common  faith  grew  into  a  national  bond  as  religion 
struggled  hand  in  hand  with  England  itself  against  the 
heathen  of  the  north.  They  recognized  a  common  king 
as  a  common  struggle  changed  Alfred  and  his  sons  from 
mere  leaders  of  West  Saxons  into  leaders  of  all  English- 
men in  their  fight  with  the  stranger,  yind  when  the  work 
which  Alfred  set  his  house  to  do  was  done,  when  the  yoke 
of  the  Northman  was  lifted  from  the  last  of  his  conquests, 
Engle  and  Saxon,  Northumbrian  and  Mercian,  spent  with 
the  battle  for  a  common  freedom  and  a  common  country, 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.      449—1071.  91 

knew  themselves  in  the  hour  of  their  deliverance  as  an  CHAP.  IV. 
English  people.  Feudalism 

The  new  people  found  its  centre  in  the  King.  The  Monarchy, 
heightening  of  the  royal  power  was  a  direct  outcome  954.- 
of  the  war.  The  dying  out  of  other  royal  stocks  left  1^t" 
the  house  of  Cerdic  the  one  line  of  hereditary  kingship. 
But  it  was  the  war  with  the  Northmen  that  raised  Alfred 
and  his  sons  from  tribal  leaders  into  national  kings. 
The  long  series  of  triumphs  which  wrested  the  land  from 
the  stranger  begot  a  new  and  universal  loyalty  ;  while  the 
wider  dominion  which  their  success  bequeathed  removed 
the  kings  further  and  further  from  their  people,  lifted 
them  higher  and  higher  above  the  nobles,  and  clothed 
them  more  and  more  with  a  mysterious  dignity.  Above 
all  the  religious  character  of  the  war  against  the  Northmen 
gave  a  religious  character  to  the  sovereigns  who  waged 
it.  The  king,  if  he  was  no  longer  sacred  as  the  son 
of  Woden,  became  yet  more  sacred  as  "the  Lord's 
Anointed."  By  the  very  fact  of  his  consecration  he  was 
pledged  to  a  religious  rule,  to  justice,  mercy,  and  good 
government ;  but  his  "  hallowing  "  invested  him  also  with 
a  power  drawn  not  from  the  will  of  man  or  the  assent 
of  his  subjects  but  from  the  will  of  God,  and  treason 
against  him  became  the  worst  of  crimes.  Every  reign 
lifted  the  sovereign  higher  in  the  social  scale.  The  bishop, 
once  ranked  equal  with  him  in  value  of  life,  sank  to  the 
level  of  the  ealdorman.  The  ealdorman  himself,  once  the 
hereditary  ruler  of  a  smaller  state,  became  a  mere  delegate 
of  the  national  king,  with  an  authority  curtailed  in  every 
shire  by  that  of  the  royal  shire-reeves,  officers  despatched  to 
levy  the  royal  revenues  and  to  administer  the  royal  justice. 
Among  the  later  nobility  of  the  thegns  personal  service  with 
such  a  lord  was  held  not  to  degrade  but  to  ennoble.  "Dish- 
thegn"aud  "bower-thegn,"  "house-thegn"  and"horse-thegn'' 
found  themselves  great  officers  of  state  ;  and  the  develope- 
ment  of  politics,  the  wider  extension  of  home  and  foreign 
affairs  were  already  transforming  these  royal  officers  into  a 


92  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.   standing  council  or  ministry  for  the  transaction  of  the 

Feudalism  ordinary   administrative   business   and   the    reception    of 

Mandthe     judicial  appeals.     Such   a   ministry,   composed  of  thegns 

954-      or  Palates    nominated   by    the    king,    and    constituting 

IOTI.      jn  itself  a  large  part   of  the    Witenagemote  when  that 

assembly  was  gathered  for  legislative  purposes,  drew  the 

actual  control  of  affairs  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of 

the  sovereign  himself. 

Growth  of  But  the  king's  power  was  still  a  personal  power.  He  had 
Feudal-  to  |je  everywhere  and  to  see  for  himself  that  everything  he 
willed  was  done.  The  royal  claims  lay  still  far  ahead 
of  the  real  strength  of  the  Crown.  There  was  a  want  of 
administrative  machinery  in  actual  connexion  with  the 
government,  responsible  to  it,  drawing  its  force  directly  from 
it,  and  working  automatically  in  its  name  even  in  moments 
when  the  royal  power  was  itself  weak  or  wavering.  The 
Crown  was  strong  under  a  king  who  was  strong,  whose 
personal  action  was  felt  everywhere  throughout  the  realm, 
whose  dread  lay  on  every  reeve  and  ealdorman.  But  with 
a  weak  king  the  Crown  was  weak.  Ealdormen,  provincial 
witanagemotes,  local  jurisdictions,  ceased  to  move  at  the 
royal  bidding  the  moment  the  direct  royal  pressure  was 
loosened  or  removed.  Enfeebled  as  they  were,  the  old 
provincial  jealousies,  the  old  tendency  to  severance  and 
isolation  lingered  on  and  woke  afresh  when  the  Crown  fell 
to  a  nerveless  ruler  or  to  a  child.  And  at  the  moment  we 
have  reached  the  royal  power  and  the  national  union  it 
embodied  had  to  battle  with  fresh  tendencies  towards 
national  disintegration  which  sprang  like  itself  from  the 
struggle  with  the  Northman.  The  tendency  towards  per- 
sonal dependence  and  towards  a  social  organization  based 
on  personal  dependence  received  an  overpowering  impulse 
from  the  strife.  The  long  insecurity  of  a  century  of  warfare 
drove  the  ceorl,  the  free  tiller  of  the  soil,  to  seek  protection 
more  and  more  from  the  thegn  beside  him.  The  freeman 
"commended  "  himself  to  a  lord  who  promised  aid,  and  as 
the  price  of  this  shelter  he  surrendered  his  freehold  to 


EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


receive  it  back  as  a  fief  laden  with  conditions  of  military  CHAP.  IV. 
service.  The  principle  of  personal  allegiance  which  was  Feudalism 
embodied  in  the  very  notion  of  thegnhood,  itself  tended  Monarchy, 
to  widen  into  a  theory  of  general  dependence.  From  954- 
^Elired's  day  it  was  assumed  that  no  man  could  exist  1O71 
without  a  lord.  The  "  lordless  man  "  became  a  sort  of 
outlaw  in  the  realm.  The  free  man,  the  very  base  of  the 
older  English  constitution,  died  down  more  and  more  into 
the  "  villein,"  the  man  who  did  suit  and  service  to  a 
master,  who  followed  him  to  the  field,  who  looked  to  his 
court  for  justice,  who  rendered  days  of  service  in  his 
demesne.  The  same  tendencies  drew  the  lesser  thegns 
around  the  greater  nobles,  and  these  around  the  provincial 
ealdormen.  The  ealdormen  had  hardly  been  dwarfed  into 
lieutenants  of  the  national  sovereign  before  they  again 
began  to  rise  into  petty  kings,  and  in  the  century  which 
follows  we  see  Mercian  or  Northumbrian  thegns  following 
a  Mercian  or  Northumbrian  ealdorman  to  the  field  though 
it  were  against  the  lord  of  the  land.  Even  the  constitu- 
tional forms  which  sprang  from  the  old  English  freedom 
tended  to  invest  the  higher  nobles  with  a  commanding 
power.  In  the  "  great  meeting  "  of  the  Witenagemote  or 
Assembly  of  the  Wise  lay  the  rule  of  the  realm.  It  repre- 
sented the  whole  English  people,  as  the  wise-moots  of  each 
kingdom  represented  the  separate  peoples  of  each  ;  and  its 
powers  were  as  supreme  in  the  wider  field  as  theirs  in 
the  narrower.  It  could  elect  or  depose  the  King.  To  it 
belonged  the  higher  justice,  the  imposition  of  taxes,  the 
making  of  laws,  the  conclusion  of  treaties,  the  control  of 
wars,  the  disposal  of  public  lands,  the  appointment  of 
great  officers  of  state.  But  such  a  meeting  necessarily 
differed  greatly  in  constitution  from,  the  Witans  of  the 
lesser  kingdoms.  The  individual  freeman,  save  when  the 
host  was  gathered  together,  could  hardly  take  part  in  its 
deliberations.  The  only  relic  of  its  popular  character  lay 
at  last  in  the  ring  of  citizens  who  gathered  round  the 
Wise  Men  at  London  or  Winchester,  and  shouted  their 


94  H1STOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.   "  aye  "  or  "  nay  "  at  the  election  of  a  king.     Distance  and 

Feudalism  the  hardships  of  travel  made  the  presence  of  the  lesser 

Monarchy,  thegns   as  rare  as  that  of  the  freemen ;  and  the  national 

954.-      council  practically  shrank  into  a  gathering  of  the  ealdor- 

1071-      men,  the  bishops,  and  the  officers  of  the  crown. 

Feudalism      The  old    English  democracy   had  thus  all  but  passed 

and  the     .  ,         oligarchy  of  the  narrowest  kind.    The  feudal  move- 
Monarchy.   A  .  °    .     J  . 

ment  which  in  other  lands  was  breaking  up  every  nation 

into  a  mass  of  loosely-knit  states  with  nobles  at  their  head 
who  owned  little  save  a  nominal  allegiance  to  their  king 
threatened  to  break  vp  England  itself.     What  hindered  its 
triumph  was  the  power  of  the  Crown,  and  it  is  the  story 
of  this  struggle  between  the  monarchy  and  these  tenden- 
cies to  feudal  isolation  which  fills  the  period  between  the 
death  of  Eadred  and  the  conquest  of  the  Norman.     It  was 
a  struggle  which  England  shared  with  'the  rest  of  the  west- 
ern world,  but  its  issue  here  was  a  peculiar  one.     In  other 
countries  feudalism  won  an  easy  victory  over  the  central 
government.     In  England  alone  the  monarchy  was  strong 
enough  to  hold  feudalism  at  bay.     Powerful  as  he  might 
be,  the  English  ealdorman  never  succeeded  in  becoming 
really  hereditary  or  independent  of  the  Crown.     Kings  as 
weak  as  ^thelred  could  drive  ealdormen  into  exile  and 
could  replace  them  by  fresh  nominees.    If  the  Witenagemote 
enabled  the  great  nobles   to  bring  their  power  to  bear 
directly  on  the  Crown,  it  preserved  at  any  rate  a  feeling 
of  national  unity  and  was  forced  to  back  the  Crown  against 
individual  revolt.     The  Church  too  never  became  feuda- 
lized.    The  bishop  clung  to  the  Crown,  and  the  bishop 
remained  a  great  social  and  political  power.     As  local  in 
area  as  the  ealdorman,  for  the  province   was  his  diocese 
and  he  sat  by  his  side  in  the  local  Witenagemote,  he  fur- 
nished a  standing  check  on  the  independence  of  the  great 
nobles.     But  if  feudalism  proved  too  weak  to  conquer  the 
monarchy,  it  was  strong   enough  to  paralyze  its  action. 
Neither  of  the  two  forces  could  master  the  other,  but  each 
could  weaken  the  other,  and  throughout  the  whole  period 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  95 

of  their  conflict  England  lay  a  prey  to  disorder  within  and  CHAP.  IV. 
to  insult  from  without.  Feudalism 

The  first  sign  of  these  troubles  was  seen  when  the  Monarchy 
death  of  Eadred  in  955  handed  over  the  realm  to  a  child  9~^_ 
King,  his  nephew  Eadwig.  Eadwig  was  swayed  by  a  1O71 
woman  of  high  lineage,  ^thelgifu;  and  the  quarrel 
between  her  and  the  older  counsellors  of  Eadred  broke 
into  open  strife  at  the  coronation  feast.  On  the  young 
King's  insolent  withdrawal  to  her  chamber  Dunstan, 
at  the  bidding  of  the  Witan,  drew  him  roughly  back 
to  his  seat.  But  the  feast  was  no  sooner  ended  than  a 
sentence  of  outlawry  drove  the  abbot  over  sea,  while  the 
triumph  of  ^Ethelgifu  was  crowned  in  957  by  the  marriage 
of  her  daughter  to  the  King  and  the  spoliation  of  the 
monasteries  which  Dunstan  had  befriended.  As  the  new 
Queen  was  Eadwig's  kinswoman  the  religious  opinion  of 
the  day  regarded  his  marriage  as  incestuous,  and  it  was 
followed  by  a  revolution.  At  the  opening  of  958  Arch- 
bishop Odo  parted  the  King  from  his  wife  by  solemn 
sentence ;  while  the  Mercians  and  Northumbrians  rose  in 
revolt,  proclaimed  Eadwig's  brother  Eadgar  their  king, 
and  recalled  Dunstan.  The  death  of  Eadwig  a  few  months 
later  restored  the  unity  of  the  realm ;  but  his  successor 
Eadgar  was  only  a  boy  of  fourteen  and  throughout  his 
reign  the  actual  direction  of  affairs  lay  in  the  hands  of 
Dunstan,  whose  elevation  to  the  see  of  Canterbury  set  him 
at  the  head  of  the  Church  as  of  the  State.  The  noblest 
tribute  to  his  rule  lies  in  the  silence  of  our  chroniclers. 
His  work  indeed  was  a  work  of  settlement,  and  such  a 
work  was  best  done  by  the  simple  enforcement  of  peace. 
During  the  years  of  rest  in  which  the  stern  hand  of  the 
Primate  enforced  justice  and  order  Northman  and  English- 
man drew  together  into  a  single  people.  Their  union  was 
the  result  of  no  direct  policy  of  fusion ;  on  the  contrary 
Dunstan's  policy  preserved  to  the  conquered  Danelagh 
its  local  rights  and  local  usages.  But  he  recognized 
the  men  of  the  Danelagh  as  Englishmen,  he  employed 


96 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Feudalism 

and the 
Monarchy. 

954- 
1O71. 


Eadward 

the 
Martyr. 


Northmen  in  the  royal  service,  and  promoted  them  to 
high  posts  in  Church  and  State.  For  the  rest  he  trusted 
to  time,  and  time  justified  his  trust.  The  fusion  was 
marked  by  a  memorable  change  in  the  name  of  the 
land.  Slowly  as  the  conquering  tribes  had  learned  to 
know  themselves  by  the  one  national  name  of  English- 
men, they  learned  yet  more  slowly  to  stamp  their  name 
on  the  land  they  had  won.  It  was  not  till  Eadgar's 
day  that  the  name  of  Britain  passed  into  the  name  of 
Engla-land,  the  land  of  Englishmen,  England.  The  same 
vigorous  rule  which  secured  rest  for  the  country  during 
these  years  of  national  union  told  on  the  growth  of  material 
prosperity.  Commerce  sprang  into  a  wider  life.  Its 
extension  is  seen  in  the  complaint  that  men  learned 
fierceness  from  the  Saxon  of  Germany,  effeminacy  from 
the  Fleming,  and  drunkenness  from  the  Dane.  The  laws 
of  -ZEthelred  which  provide  for  the  protection  and  regu- 
lation of  foreign  trade  only  recognize  a  state  of  things 
which  grew  up  under  Eadgar.  "  Men  of  the  Empire," 
traders  of  Lower  Lorraine  and  the  Rhine-land,  "  Men  of 
Rouen,"  traders  from  the  new  Norman  duchy  of  the  Seine, 
were  seen  in  the  streets  of  London.  It  was  in  Eadgar's 
day  indeed  that  London  rose  to  the  commercial  greatness 
it  has  held  ever  since. 

Though  Eadgar  reigned  for  sixteen  years,  he  was  still 
in  the  prime  of  manhood  when  he  died  in  975.  His 
death  gave  a  fresh  opening  to  the  great  nobles.  He  had 
bequeathed  the  Crown  to  his  elder  son  Eadward  ;  lout  the 
Ealdorman  of  East  Anglia,  ^thelwine,  rose  at  once  to  set 
a  younger  child,  ^Ethelred,  on  the  throne.  But  the  two 
primates  of  Canterbury  and  York  who  had  joined  in  setting 
the  crown  on  the  head  of  Eadgar  now  joined  in  setting 
it  on  the  head  of  Eadward,  and  Dunstan  remained  as 
before  master  of  the  realm.  The  boy's  reign  however  was 
troubled  by  strife  between  the  monastic  party  and  their 
opponents  till  in  979  the  quarrel  was  cut  short  by  his 
murder  at  Corfe,  and  with  the  accession  of  JSthelred,  the 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  97 

power  of  Dunstan  made  way  for  that  of  Ealdorman  /Ethel-  CHAP.  IV. 
wine  and  the  Queen-mother.     Some  years  of  tranquillity   Feudalism 
followed    this  victory;    but  though  /Ethelwine  preserved  Monarchy, 
order  at  home  he  showed  little  sense  of  the  danger  which       954.- 
threatened  from  abroad.     The  North  was  girding  itself  for      1071- 
a  fresh  onset  on  England.     The  Scandinavian  peoples  had 
drawn  together  into  their  kingdoms  of  Denmark,  Sweden, 
and  Nonvay ;  and  it  was  no  longer  in  isolated  bands  but 
in  national  hosts  that  they  were  about  to  seek  conquests 
in  the  South.    As^Ethelred  drew  to  manhood  some  chance 
descents  on  the  coast  told  of  this  fresh  stir  in  the  North, 
and  the  usual  result  of  the  Northman's  presence  was  seen 
in  new  risings  among  the  Welsh. 

In  991  Ealdorman  Brihtnoth  of  East  Anglia  fell  in  JEthelred. 
battle  with  a  Norwegian  force  at  Maldon,  and  the  with- 
drawal of  the  pirates  had  to  be  bought  by  money. 
JEthelwine  too  died  at  this  moment,  and  the  death 
of  the  two  Ealdormen  left  ^Ethelred  free  to  act  as  King. 
But  his  aim  was  rather  to  save  the  Crown  from  his 
nobles  than  England  from  the  Northmen.  Handsome 
and  pleasant  of  address,  the  young  King's  pride  showed 
itself  in  a  string  of  imperial  titles,  and  his  restless  and 
self-confident  temper  drove  him  to  push  the  preten- 
sions of  the  Crown  to  their  furthest  extent.  His  aim 
throughout  his  reign  was  to  free  himself  from  the  dicta- 
tion of  the  great  nobles,  and  it  was  his  indifference  to 
their  "  rede "  or  counsel  that  won  him  the  name  of 
"  -JSthelred  the  Kedeless."  From  the  first  he  struck  boldly 
at  his  foe?,  and  /Elfgar,  the  Ealdorman  of  Mercia,  whom 
the  death 'of  his  rival  ^Ethelwine  left  supreme  in  the  realm, 
was  driven  by  the  King's  hate  to  desert  to  a  Danish 
force  which  he  was  sent  in  992  to  drive  from  the  coast. 
JEthelred  turned  from  his  triumph  at  home  to  meet 
the  forces  of  the  Danish  and  Norwegian  Kings,  Swegen 
and  Olaf,  which  anchored  off  London  in  994.  His  policy 
throughout  was  a  policy  of  diplomacy  rather  than  of 
arms,  and  a  treaty  of  subsidy  gave  time  for  intrigues 


98  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  which,  parted  the  invaders  till  troubles  at  home  drew  both 

Feudalism  again  to  tlie  North,     ^thelred  took  quick  advantage  of 

Monarchy    h*8  success  at  home  and  abroad  ;  the  place  of  the  great 

954-      ealdormen  in  the  royal  councils  was  taken  by  court-thegns, 

1071.      jn  whom  we  see  the  rudiments  of  a  ministry,  while  the 

King's  fleet  attacked  the  pirates'  haunts  in  Cumberland 

and  the  Cotentin.      But  in  spite  of  all  this  activity  the 

news  of  a  fresh  invasion .  found  England  more  weak  and 

broken  than  ever.      The  rise  of   the   "  new  men "    only 

widened   the   breach   between  the   court  and    the   great 

nobles,   and    their   resentment    showed   itself  in    delays 

which   foiled   every   attempt   of  ^Ethelred   to   meet   the 

pirate-bands  who  still  clung  to  the  coast. 

Swegen.  They  came  probably  from  the  other  side  of  the  Channel, 
and  it  was  to  clear  them  away  as  well  as  secure  himself 
against  Swegen's  threatened  descent  that  ^Ethelred  took 
a  step  which  brought  England  in  contact  with  a  land 
over-sea.  Normandy,  where  the  Northmen  had  settled  a 
hundred  years  before,  was  now  growing  into  a  great  power, 
and  it  was  to  win  the  friendship  of  Normandy  and  to  close 
its  harbours  against  Swegen  that  ^Ethelred  in  1002  took 
the  Norman  Duke's  daughter,  Emma,  to  wife.  The  same 
dread  of  invasion  gave  birth  to  a  panic  of  treason  from  the 
Northern  mercenaries  whom  the  King  had  drawn  to  settle 
in  the  land  as  a  fighting  force  against  their  brethren ;  and 
an  order  of  JEthelred  brought  about  a  general  massacre  of 
them  on  St.  Brice's  day.  Wedding  and  murder  however 
proved  feeble  defences  against  Swegen.  '  His  fleet  reached 
the  coast  in  1003,  and  for  four  years  he  marched  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  Southern  and  Eastern  England, 
"  lighting  his  war-beacons  as  he  went "  in  blazing  home- 
stead and  town.  Then  for  a  heavy  bribe  he  withdrew,  to 
prepare  for  a  later  and  more  terrible  onset.  But  there  was 
no  rest  for  the  realm.  The  fiercest  of  'the  Norwegian  jarls 
took  his  place,  and  from  Wessex  the  war  extended  over 
Mercia  and  East  Anglia.  In  1012  Canterbury  was  taken 
and  sacked,  ^Elf  heah  the  Archbishop  dragged  to  Greenwich, 


I.]  EAKLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  99 

and  there  in  default  of  ransom  brutally  slain.     The  Danes  CHAP.  IV. 
set  him  in  the  midst  of  their  husting,  pelting  him  with  Feudalism 
bones  and  skulls  of  oxen,  till  one  more  pitiful  than  the  Monarchy, 
rest  clove  his  head  with  an  axe.    Meanwhile  the  court  was       954^ 
torn  with  intrigue  and  strife,  with  quarrels  between  the      1^1- 
court-thegns    in   their    greed    of  power   and  yet   fiercer 
quarrels  between  these    favourites  and  the  nobles  whom 
they  superseded  in  the  royal  councils.     The  King's  policy 
of  finding   aid   among    his    new   ministers  broke    down 
when  these  became  themselves  ealdormen.      With  their 
local  position  they  took  up  the  feudal  claims  of  independ- 
ence ;    and  Eadric,  whom  ^Ethelred  raised  to  be  Ealdor- 
man  of  Mercia,  became  a  power  that  overawed  the  Crown. 
In  this  paralysis  of  the  central  authority  all  organization 
and  union  was  lost.     '•'  Shire  would  not  help  other  "  when 
Swegen  returned  in  1013.     The  war  was  terrible  but  short. 
Everywhere  the  country  was  pitilessly  harried,  churches 
plundered,  men  slaughtered.     But,  with  the  one  exception 
of  London,  there  was  no  attempt  at  resistance.     Oxford  and 
Winchester  flung  open  their  gates.     The  thegns  of  Wessex 
submitted  to  the  Northmen  at  Bath.     Even  London  was 
forced  at  last  to  give  way,  and  yEthelred  fled   over-sea 
to  a  refuge  in  Normandy. 

He  was  soon  called  back  again.  In  the  opening  of  1014  Onut. 
Swegen  died  suddenly  at  Gainsborough  ;  and  the  spetl  of 
terror  was  broken.  The  Witau  recalled  "  their  own  born 
lord,"  and  JEthelred  returned  to  see  the  Danish  fleet  under 
Swegen's  son,  Cnut,  sail  away  to  the  North.  It  was  but  to 
plan  a  more  terrible  return.  Youth  of  nineteen  as  he 
was,  Cnut  showed  from  the  first  the  vigour  of  his  temper. 
Setting  aside  his  brother  he  made  himself  King  of 
Denmark ;  and  at  once  gathered  a  splendid  fleet  for  a  fresh 
attack  on  England,  whose  King  and  nobles  were  again 
at  strife,  and  where  a  bitter  quarrel  between  Ealdorman 
Eadric  of  Mercia.  and  ^Ethelred's  son  Eadmund  Ironside 
broke  the  strength  of  the  realm.  The  desertion  of  Eadric 
to  Cnut  as  soon  as  he  appeared  off  the  coast  threw  open 


100  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  England  to  his  arms ; ,  Wessex  and  Mercia    submitted  to 
Feudalism  nim  >  and  tllouen  tne  Ioyalt7  of  London  enabled  Eadm-und, 
and^the     when  his  father's  death  raised  him  in  1016  to  the  throne, 
954-      to  struggle  bravely  for  a  few  months  against  the  Danes,  a 
lOTi.      decisive  overthrow  at  Assandun  and  a  treaty  of  partition 
which  this  wrested   from  him    at  Olney  were    soon  fol- 
lowed by  the  young  King's  death.     Cnut  was  left  master 
of    the   realm.       His  first   acts   of    government    showed 
little  but  the  temper  of  the  mere  Northman,  passionate, 
revengeful,  uniting  the  guile  of  the  savage  with  his  thirst 
for  blood.     Eadric  of  Mercia,  whose  aid  had  given  him  the 
Crown,  was  felled  by  an  axe-blow  at  the  King's  signal ; 
a  murder  removed  Eadwig,  the  brother  of  Eadnmnd  Iron- 
side, while  the  children  of  Eadmund  were  hunted  even  into 
Hungary  by  his  ruthless  hate.     But  from  a  savage  such  as 
this  the  ypung  conqueror  rose  abruptly  into  a  wise  and 
temperate  king.     His  aim  during  twenty  years  seems  to 
have   been   to   obliterate  from  men's   minds  the   foreign 
character  of  his  rule  and  the  bloodshed  in  which  it  had 
begun. 

Conqueror  indeed  as  he  was,  the  Dane  was  no  foreigner 
in  the  sense  that  the  Norman  was  a  foreigner  after  him. 
His  language  differed  little  from  the  English  tongue.  He 
brought  in  no  new  system  of  tenure  or  government. 
Cnut  ruled  in  fact  not  as  a  foreign  conqueror  but  as 
a  native  king.  He  dismissed  his  Danish  host,  and  retain- 
ing only  a  trained  band  of  household  troops  or  "  hus-carles  " 
to  serve  as  a  body-guard  relied  boldly  for  support  within 
his  realm  on  the  justice  and  good  government  he  secured 
it.  He  fell  back  on  "  Eadgar's  Law,"  on  the  old  constitu- 
tion of  the  realm,  for  his  rule  of  government ;  and  owned 
no  difference  between  Dane  and  Englishman  among  his 
subjects.  He  identified  himself  even  with  the  patriotism 
which  had  withstood  the  stranger.  The  Church  had 
been  the  centre  of  the  national  resistance;  Archbishop 
^Elfheah  had  been  slain  by  Danish  hands.  But  Cnut 
sought  the  friendship  of  the  Church  ;  he  translated 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449-1071.  101 

yElfheah's  body  with  great  pomp  to  Canterbury  ;  he  atoned  CHAP.  IV. 
for  Ills  father's  ravages  by  gifts  to  the  religious  houses  ;  he  Feudalism 
protected  English  pilgrims  even  against  the  robber-lords  of  Monarchy. 
the  Alps.     His  love  for  monks  broke  out  in  a  song  which      9^4- 
he   composed   as    he   listened    to    their   chaunt    at   Ely.      1^J1- 

L  •/ 

•'  Merrily  sang  the  monks  of  Ely  when  Cnut  King  rowed 
by"  across  the  vast  fen-waters  that  surrounded  their 
abbey.  "  Eow,  boatmen,  near  the  land,  and  hear  we  these 
monks  sing."  A  letter  which  Cnut  wrote  after  twelve 
years  of  rule  to  his  English  subjects  marks  the  grandeur 
of  his  character  and  the  noble  conception  he  had  formed 
of  kingship.  '•  I  have  vowed  to  God  to  lead  a  right  life 
in  all  things,"  wrote  the  King,  "  to  rule  justly  and  piously 
my  realms  and  subjects,  and  to  administer  just  judgement 
to  all.  If  heretofore  I  have  done  aught  beyond  what  was 
just,  through  headiness  or  negligence  of  youth,  I  am  ready, 
with  God's  help,  to  amend  it  utterly."  No  royal  officer, 
either  for  fear  of  the  King  or  for  favour  of  any,  is  to 
consent  to  injustice,  none  is  to  do  wrong  to  rich  or  poor 
"  as  they  would  value  ray  friendship  and  their  own  well- 
being."  He  especially  denounces  unfair  exactions :  "  I 
have  no  need  that  money  be  heaped  together  for  me  by 
unjust  demands."  "I  have  sent  this  letter  before  me," 
Cnut  ends, "  that  all  the  people  of  my  realm  may  rejoice 
in  my  well-doing ;  for  as  you  yourselves  know,  never  have 
1  spared,  nor  will  I  spare,  to  spend  myself  and  my  toil  in 
what  is  needful  and  good  for  my  people." 

C  nut's  greatest  gift  to  his  people  was  that  of  peace.  Cnut  and 
With  him  began  the  long  internal  tranquillity  which  was  Gotland. 
from  this  time  to  be  the  key-note  of  the  national  history. 
Without,  the  Dane  was  no  longer  a  terror ;  on  the  contrary 
it    was   English   ships   and    English   soldiers    who    now 
appeared  in  the  North   and  followed  Cnut  in  his  cam- 
paigns against  Wend  or  Norwegian.     Within,  the  exhaus- 
tion which  follows  a  long  anarchy  gave  fresh  strength  to 
the  Crown,'  and  Cnut's  own  ruling  temper  was  backed  by 
the  force  of  hus-carles  at  his  disposal     The  four  Earls  of 

YOL.  1—8 


1Q2  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  Northumberland,  Mercia,  Wessex,  and  East  Anglia,  whom 
Feudalism  *ie  set  in  the  Piace  of  tne  older  ealdormen,  knew  them- 
Monarchy  selves  to  De  the  creatures  of  his  will ;  the  ablest  indeed  of 
95A-  their  number,  Godwine,  Earl  of  Wessex,  was  the  minister 
1071.  or  c}ose  counsellor  of  the  King.  The  troubles  along  the 
Northern  border  were  ended  by  a  memorable  act  of  policy. 
From  Eadgar's  day  the  Scots  had  pressed  further  and 
further  across  the  Firth  of  Forth  till  a  victory  of  their 
King  Malcolm  over  Earl  Eadwulf  at  Carham  in  1018 
made  him  master  of  Northern  Northumbria.  In  1031 
Cnut  advanced  to  the  North,  but  the  quarrel  ended  in  a 
formal  cession  of  the  district  between  the  Forth  and  the 
Tweed,  Lothian  as  it  was  called,  to  the  Scot-King  on  his 
doing  homage  to  Cnut.  The  gain  told  at  once  on  the 
character  of  the  Northern  kingdom.  The  Kings  of  the 
Scots  had  till  now  been  rulers  simply  of  Gaelic  and  Celtic 
peoples ;  but  from  the  moment  that  Lothian  with  its 
English  farmers  and  English  seamen  became  a  part  of 
their  dominions  it  became  the  most  important  part.  The 
Kings  fixed  their  seat  at  Edinburgh,  and  in  the  midst  of 
an  English  population  passed  from  Gaelic  chieftains  into 
the  Saxon  rulers  of  a  mingled  people. 

Omits  But  the  greatness  of  Cnut's  rule  hung   solely  on  the 

Sons.  greatness  of  his  temper,  and  the  Danish  power  was  shaken 
by  his  death  in  1035.  The  empire  he  had  built  up  at 
once  fell  to  pieces.  He  had  bequeathed  both  England 
and  Denmark  to  his  son  Harthacnut ;  but  the  boy^'s 
absence  enabled  his  brother,  Harold  Harefoot,  to  acquire 
all  England  save  Godwine's  earldom  of  Wessex,  and  in  the 
end  even  Godwine  was  forced  to  submit  to  him.  Harold's 
.death  in  1040  averted  a  conflict  between  the  brothers,  and 
placed  Harthacnut  quietly  on  the  throne.  But  the  love 
which  Cnut's  justice  had  won  turned  to  hatred  before  the 
lawlessness  of  his  successors.  The  long  peace  sickened 
men  of  their  bloodshed  and  violence.  "  Never  was  a 
bloodier  deed  done  in  the  land  since  the  Danes  came," 
ran  a  popular  song,  when  Harold's  men  seized  Alfred, 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


a  brother  of  Eadmimd  Ironside,  who  returned  to  England  CHAP.  IV. 
from  Normandy  where  he  had  found  a  refuge  since  his  Feudalism 
father's  flight  to  its  shores.  Every  tenth  man  among  his  Monarchy, 
followers  was  killed,  the  rest  sold  for  slaves,  and  yElfred's 
eyes  torn  out  at  Ely.  Harthacnut,  more  savage  than  his 
predecessor,  dug  up  his  brother's  body  and  flung  it  into 
a  marsh  ;  while  a  rising  at  Worcester  against  his  hus- 
carles  was  punished  by  the  burning  of  the  town  and  the 
pillage  of  the  shire.  The  young  King's  death  was  no  less 
brutal  than  his  life  ;  in  1042  "  he  died  as  he  stood  at  his 
drink  in  the  house  of  Osgod  Clapa  at  Lambeth."  England 
wearied  of  rulers  such  as  these :  but  their  crimes  helped 
her  to  free  herself  from  the  impossible  dream  of  Cnut. 
The  North,  still  more  barbarous  than  herself,  could  give 
her  no  new  element  of  progress  or  civilization.  It  was 
the  consciousness  of  this  and  a  hatred  of  rulers  such  as 
Harold  and  Harthacnut  which  co-operated  with  the  old 
feeling  of  reverence  for  the  past  in  calling  back  the  line  of 
^Elfred  to  the  throne. 

It  is  in  such  transitional  moments  of  a  nation's  history  Eadward 
that  it  needs  the  cool  prudence,  the  sensitive  selfishness,  ^ 
the  quick  perception  of  what  is  possible,  which  distin- 
guished the  adroit  politician  whom  the  death  of  Cnut 
left  supreme  in  England.  Originally  of  obscure  origin,  . 
Godwine's  ability  had  raised  him  high  in  .the  royal  favour; 
he  was  allied  to  Cnut  by  marriage,  entrusted  by  him  with 
the  earldom  of  Wessex,  and  at  last  made  the  Viceroy  or 
justiciar  of  the  King  in  the  government  of  the  realm.  In 
the  wars  of  Scandinavia  he  had  shown  courage  and  skill  at 
the  head  of  a  body  of  English  troops,  but  his  true  field  of 
action  lay  at  home.  Shrewd,  eloquent,  an  active  adminis-* 
trator,  Godwine  united  vigilance,  industry,  and  caution 
with  a  singular  dexterity  in  the  management  of  men. 
During  the  troubled  years  that  followed  the  death  of  Cnut 
he  did  his  best  to  continue  his  master's  policy  in  securing 
the  internal  union  of  England  under  a  Danish  sovereign 
and  in  preserving  her  connexion  with  the  North.  But  at 


104 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1071  . 


CHAP.  IV.  the  death  of  Harthacnut  Cnut's  policy  had  become  irnpos- 
Feudaiism  sible,  and  abandoning  the  Danish  cause  Godwine  drifted 
Maona*chy  witn  ^ne  ^e  °^  P°Pular  feeling  which  called  Eadward,  the 
5_  one  living  son  of  JEthelred,  to  the  throne.  Eadward  had 
iive(j  from  his  youth  in  exile  at  the  court  of  Normandy. 
A  halo  of  tenderness  spread  in  after-time  round  this  last 
King  of  the  old  English  stock  ;  legends  told  of  his  pious 
simplicity,  his  blithe  ness  and  gentleness  of  mood,  the 
holiness  that  gained  him  his  name  of  "Confessor"  and 
enshrined  him  as  a  Saint  in  his  abbey-church  at  West- 
minster. Gleemen  sang  in  manlier  tones  of  the  long  peace 
and  glories  of  his  reign,  how  warriors  and  wise  counsellors 
stood  round  his  throne,  and  Welsh  and  Scot  and  Briton 
obeyed  him.  His  was  the  one  figure  that  stood  out  bright 
against  the  darkness  when  England  lay  trodden  under  foot 
by  Norman  conquerors  ;  and  so  dear  became  his  memory 
that  liberty  and  independence  itself  seemed  incarnate  in 
his  name.  Instead  of  freedom,  the  subjects  of  William  or 
Henry  called  for  the  "good  laws  of  Eadward  the  Con- 
fessor." But  it  was  as  a  mere  shadow  of  the  past  that  the 
exile  really  returned  to  the  throne  of  Alfred  ;  there  was 
something  shadow-like  in  his  thin  form,  his  delicate  com- 
plexion, his  transparent  womanly  hands  ;  and  it  is  almost 
as  a  shadow  that  he  glides  over  the  political  stage.  The 
work  of  government  was  done  by  sterner  hands. 

Throughout  his  earlier  reign,  in  fact,  England  lay  in 
the  hands  of  its  three  Earls,  Siward  of  Northumbria, 
Leofric  of  Mercia,  and  Godwine  of  Wessex,  and  it  seemed 
as  if  the  feudal  tendency  to  provincial  separation  against 
which  ^Ethelred  had  struggled  was  to  triumph  with  the 
death  of  Cnut.  What  hindered  this  severance  was  the 
greed  of  Godwine.  Siward  was  isolated  in  the  North  : 
Leofric's  earldom  was  but  a  fragment  of  Mercia.  But  the 
Earl  of  Wessex,  already  master  of  the  wealthiest  part  of 
England,  seized  district  after  district  for  his  house.  His 
son  Swegen  secured  an  earldom  in  the  south-west  ;  his  son 
Harold  became  Earl  of  East  Anglia  ;  his  nephew  Beorn  was 


Godwine. 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  105 

established  in  Central  England  :  while  the  marriage  of  his  CHAP.  IV. 
daughter  Eadgyth  to  the  King  himself  gave  Godwine  a  Feudalism 
hold  upon  the  throne.  Policy  led  the  Earl,  as  it  led  his  Monarchy, 
son,  rather  to  aim  at  winning  England  itself  than  at  break-  954- 
irig  up  England  to  win  a  mere  fief  in  it.  But  his  aim  1O71' 
found  a  sudden  check  through  the  lawlessness  of  his  son 
Swegeu.  Swegen  seduced  the  abbess  of  Leominster,  sent  • 
her  home  again  with  a  yet  more  outrageous  demand  of  her 
hand  in  marriage,  and  on  the  King's  refusal  to  grant  it 
fled  from  the  realm.  Godwine's  influence  secured  his 
pardon,  but  on  his  very  return  to  seek  it  Swegen  murdered 
his  cousin  Beorn  who  had  opposed  the  reconciliation  and 
again  fled  to  Flanders.  A  storm  of  national  indignation 
followed  him  over-sea.  The  meeting  of  the  Wise  men 
branded  him  as  "  nithing,"  the  "  utterly  worthless,"  yet  in  a 
year  his  father  wrested  a  new  pardon  from  the  King  and 
restored  him  to  his  earldom.  The  scandalous  inlawing  of 
such  a  criminal  left  Godwine  alone  in  a  struggle  which 
soon  arose  with  Eadward  himself.  The  King  was  a 
stranger  in  his  realm,  and  his  sympathies  lay  naturally 
with  the  home  and  friends  of  his  youth  and  exile.  He 
spoke  the  Norman  tongue.  He  used  in  Norman  fashion  a 
seal  for  his  charters.  He  set  Norman  favourites  in  the 
highest  posts  of  Church  and  State,  Foreigners  such  as 
these,  though  hostile  to  the  minister,  .were  powerless 
against  Godwine's  influence  and  ability,  and  when  at  a 
later  time  they  ventured  to  stand  alone  against  him  they 
fell  without  a  blow.  But  the  general  ill-will  at  Swegen's 
inlawing  enabled  them  to  stir  Eadward  to  attack  the  Earl, 
and  in  1051  a  trivial  quarrel  brought  the  opportunity  of 
a  decisive  break  with  him.  On  his  return  from  a  visit 
to  the  court  Eustace,  Count  of  Boulogne,  the  husband  of 
the  King's  sister,  demanded  quarters  for  his  train  in 
Dover.  Strife  arose,  and  many  both  of  the  burghers  and 
foreigners  were  slain.  All  Godwine's  better  nature  with- 
stood Eadward  when  the  King  angrily  bade  him  exact 
vengeance  from  the  town  for  the  affront  of  his  kinsman ; 


106  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  and   he   claimed    a   fair   trial   for   the   townsmen.      But 
Feudalism  Eadward   looked   on  his  refusal  as  an    outrage,  and    the 
Monarchy    quarrel   widened    into  open    strife.       Godwine   at    once 
954-      gathered    his    forces     and     marched     upon     Gloucester, 
1071.      demanding  the  expulsion  of  the  foreign  favourites.     But 
even  in  a  just  quarrel  the  country  was  cold  in  his  support. 
The  Earls  of  Mercia   and   Northumberland  united   their 
forces  to  those  of  Eadward  at  Gloucester,  and  marched 
with  the  King  to   a  gathering  of  the  Witenagemote  at 
London.     Godwine  again  appeared  in  arms,  but  Swegen's 
outlawry  was  renewed,  and  the  Earl  of  Wessex.  declining 
with  his  usual  prudence  a  useless  struggle,  withdrew  over- 
sea to  Flanders. 

Harold.  But  the  wrath  of  the  nation  was  appeased  by  his  fall. 
Great  as  were  Godwine's  faults,  he  was  the  one  man  who 
now  stood  between  England  and  the  rule  of  the  strangers 
who  flocked  to  the  Court ;  and  a  year  had  hardly  passed 
when  he  was  strong  enough  to  return.  At  the  appearance 
of  his  fleet  in  the  Thames  in  105:2  Eadward  was  once 
more  forced  to  yield.  The  foreign  prelates  and  bishops 
fled  over-sea,  outlawed  by  the  same  meeting  of  the  AVise 
men  which  restored  Godwine  to  his  home.  But  he  re- 
turned only  to  die,  and  the  direction  of  affairs  passed 
quietly  to  his  son  Harold.  Harold  came  to  power  un- 
fettered by  the  obstacles  which  beset  his  father,  and  for 
twelve  years  he  was  the  actual  governor  of  the  realm. 
The  courage,  the  ability,  the  genius  for  administration, 
the  ambition  and  subtlety  of  Godwine  were  found  again  in 
his  son.  In  the  internal  government  of  England  he  fol- 
lowed out  his  father's  policy  while  avoiding  its  excesses. 
Peace  was  preserved,  justice  administered,  and  the  realm 
increased  in  wealth  and  prosperity.  Its  gold  work  and  em- 
broidery became  famous  in  the  markets  of  Flanders  and 
France.  Disturbances  froin  without  were  crushed  sternly 
and  rapidly ;  Harold's  military  talents  displayed  them- 
selves in  a  campaign  against  Wales,  and  in  the  boldness 
and  rapidity  with  which,  arming  his  troops  with  weapons 


i.-J  EARLY  ENGLAND.    449—1071.  107 

adapted  for  mountain  conflict,  he  penetrated  to  the  heart  CHAP.  IV. 
of  its  fastnesses  and  reduced  the  country  to  complete  sub-  Feudalism 
mission.     With  the  gift  of  the  Northumbrian  earldom  on  Monarchy. 
Siward's  death  to  his  brother  Tostig  all  England  save  a      954- 
small  part  of  the  older   Mercia  lay  in  the  hands  of  the      1OZ1- 
house  of  God  wine,  and  as  the  waning  health  of  the  King, 
the  death  of  his  nephew,  the  son  of  Eadmund  who  had 
returned  from  Hungary  as  his  heir,  and  the  childhood  of 
the  JEtheling   Eadgar  who  stood  next  in  blood,  removed 
obstacle  after  obstacle  to  his  plans,  Harold  patiently  but 
steadily  moved  forward  to  the  throne. 

But  his  advance  was  watched  by  one  even  more  able  and  Nor- 
ambitious  than  himself.  For  the  last  half  century  England 
had  been  drawing  nearer  to  the  Norman  land  which  fronted 
it  across  the  Channel.  As  we  pass  now-a-days  through 
Normandy,  it  is  English  history  which  is  round  about  us. 
The  name  of  hamlet  after  hamlet  has  memories  for 
English  ears  ;  a  fragment  of  castle  wall  marks  the  home  of 
the.  Bruce,  a  tiny  village  preserves  the  name  of  the  Percy, 
The  very  look  of  the  country  and  its  people  seem  familiar 
to  us  ;  the  Norman  peasant  in  his  cap  and  blouse  recalls 
the  build  and  features  of  the  small  English  farmer  ;  the 
fields  about  Caen,  with  their  dense  hedgerows,  their  elms, 
their  apple- orchards,  are  the  very  picture  of  an  English 
country-side.  Huge  cathedrals  lift  thems'elves  over  the 
red-tiled  roofs  of  little  market  towns,  the  models  of  stately 
fabrics  which  superseded  the  lowlier  churches  of  Alfred 
or  Dunstan,  while  the  windy  heights  that  look  over  orchard 
and  meadowland  are  crowned  with  the  square  grey  keeps 
which  Normandy  gave  to  the  cliffs  of  Eichmond  and  the 
banks  of  Thames.  It  was  Eolf  the  Ganger,  or  Walker,  a 
pirate  leader  like  Guthrum  or  Hasting,  who  wrested  this 
land  from  the  French  king,  Charles  the  Simple,  in  912,  at 
the  moment  when  Alfred's  children  were  beginning  their 
conquest  of  the  English  Danelagh.  The  treaty  of  Clair-on- 
Epte  in  which  France  purchased  peace  by  this  cession  of 
the  coast  was  a  close  imitation  of  the  Peace  of  Wedmore. 


108  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  Rolf,  like  Guthrum,  was  baptized,  received  the  King's 
Feudalism  daughter  in  marriage,  and  became  his  vassal  for  the  terri- 
Maonarchy  toi7  which  now  took  the  name  of  "  the  Northman's  land  " 
g—  or  Normandy.  But  vassalage  and  the  new  faith  sat  lightly 
1O71-  on  the  Dane.  No  such  ties  of  blood  and  speech  tended  to 
unite  the  Northman  with  the  French  among  whom  he 
settled  along  the  Seine  as  united  him  to  the  Englishmen 
among  whom  he  settled  along  the  Htimber.  William 
Longsword,  the  son  of  Eolf,  though  wavering  towards 
France  and  Christianity,  remained  a  Northman  in  heart ; 
he  called  in  a  Danish  colony  to  occupy  his  conquest  of 
the  Cotentin,  the  peninsula  which  runs  out  from  St. 
Michael's  Mount  to  the  cliffs  of  Cherbourg,  and  reared  his 
boy  among  the  Northmen  of  Bayeux  where  the  Danish 
tongue  and  fashions  most  stubbornly  held  their  own.  A 
heathen  reaction  followed  his  death,  and  the  bulk  of  the 
Normans,  with  the  child  Duke  Eichard,  fell  away  for  the 
time  from  Christianity,  while  new  pirate-fleets  came 
swarming  up  the  Seine.  To  the  close  of  the  century  the 
whole  people  were  still  "  Pirates  "  to  the  French  around 
them,  their  land  the  "  Pirates'  land,"  their  Duke  the 
"  Pirates'  Duke."  Yet  in  the  end  the  same  forces  which 
merged  the  Dane  in  the  Englishman  told  even  more  power- 
fully on  the  Dane  in  France.  No  race  has  ever  shown  a 
greater  power  of  absorbing  all  the  nobler  characteristics  of 
the  peoples  with  whom  they  came  in  contact,  or  of  infusing 
their  own  energy  into  them.  During  the  long  reign  of 
Duke  Eichard  the  Fearless,  the  son  of  William  Longsword, 
a  reign  which  lasted  from  945  to  996,  the  heathen  North- 
men pirates  became  French  Christians  and  feudal  at  heart. 
The  old  Norse  language  lived  only  at  Bayeux  and  in  a  few 
local  names.  As  the  old  Northern  freedom  died  silently 
away,  the  descendants  of  the  pirates  became  feudal  nobles 
and  the  "  Pirates'  land  "  sank  into  the  most  loyal  of  the 
fiefs  of  France. 

Duke  From  the  moment  of  their  settlement  on  the  Frankish 

William,  the  NormanS  had  been  jealously  watched  by  the 


EARLY  ENGLAND,     449—1071. 


109 


954- 
1071. 


English  kings ;  and  the  anxiety  of  .^thelred  for  their  CHAP.  IV. 
friendship  set  a  Norman  woman  on  the  English  throne.  Feudalism 
The  marriage  of  Emma  with  ^Ethelred  brought  about  a  Monarch? 
clqse  political  connexion  between  the  two  countries.  It 
was  in  Normandy  that  the  King  found  a  refuge  from 
Swegen's  invasion,  and  his  younger  boys  grew  up  in  exile 
at  the  Norman  court.  Their  presence  there  drew  the  eyes 
of  every  Norman  to  the  rich  land  which  offered  so  tempt- 
ing a  prey  across  the  Channel.  The  energy  which  they  had 
shown  in  winning  their  land  from  the  Franks,  in  absorb- 
ing the  French  civilization  and  the  French  religion,  was 
now  showing  itself  in  adventures  on  far-off  shores,  in 
crusades  against  the  Moslem  of  Spain  or  the  Arabs  of  Sicily. 
It  was  this  spirit  of  adventure  that  roused  the  Norman 
Duke  Eoberfc  to  sail  against  England  in  Cnut's  day  under 
pretext  of  setting  ^Ethelred's  children  on  its  throne,  but 
the  wreck  of  his  fleet  in  a  storm  put  an  end  to.  a  project 
which  might  bave  anticipated  the  work  of  his  son.  It 
was  that  son,  William  the  Great,  as  men  of  his  own  day 
styled  him,  William  the  Conqueror  as  he  was  to  stamp 
himself  by  one  event  on  English  history,  who  was  now 
Duke  of  Normandy.  The  full  grandeur  of  his  indomit- 
able will,  his  large  and  patient  statesmanship,  the  lofti- 
ness of  aim  which  lifts  him  out  of  the  pjetty  incidents 
of  his  age,  were  as  yet  only  partly  disclosed.  But  there 
never  had  been  a  moment  from  his  boyhood  when  he  was 
not  among  the  greatest  of  men.  His  life  from  the  very 
first  was  one  long  mastering  of  difficulty  after  difficulty. 
The  shame  of  his  birth  remained  in  his  name  of  "the 
Bastard."  His  father  Robert  had  seen  Arlotta,  a  tanner's 
daughter  of  the  town,  as  she  washed  her  linen  in  a  little 
brook  by  Falaise;  and  loving  her  he  had  made  her  the  mother 
of  his  boy.  The  departure  of  Eobert  on  a  pilgrimage 
from  whicli  he  never  returned  left  William  a  child-ruler 
among  the  most  turbulent  baronage  in  Christendom; 
treason  and  anarchy  surrounded  him  as  he  grew  to  man- 
hood ;  and  disorder  broke  at  last  into  open  revolt.  But  in. 


110 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Feudalism 

and  the 
Monarchy. 

954- 
1O71. 


William 

and 
France. 


1047  a  fierce  combat  of  horse  on  the  slopes  of  Val-es-dimes 
beside  Caen  left  the  young  Duke  master  of  his  duchy 
and  he  soon  made  his  mastery  felt.  "  Normans  "  said  a 
Norman  poet  "  must  be  trodden  down  and  kept  under  foot, 
for  he  only  that  bridles  them  may  use  them  at  his  need." 
In  the  stern  order  he  forced  on  the  land  Normandy  from 
this  hour  felt  the  bridle  of  its  Duke. 

Secure  at  home,  William  seized  the  moment  of  Godwine's 
exile  to  visit  England,  and  received  from  his  cousin,  King 
Eadward,  as  he  afterwards  asserted,  a  promise  of  succes- 
sion to  his  throne.  Such  a  promise  however,  unconfirmed 
by  the  Witenagemote,  was  valueless  ;  and  the  return  of 
Godwine  must  have  at  once  cut  short  the  young  Duke's 
hopes.  He  found  in  fact  work  enough  to  do  in  his  own 
duchy,  for  the  discontent  of  his  baronage  at  the  stern 
justice  of  his  rule  found  support  in  the  jealousy  which  his 
power  raised  in  the  states  around  him,  and  it  was  only 
after  two  great  victories  at  Mortemer  and  Varaville  and 
six  years  of  hard  fighting  that  outer  and  inner  foes  were 
alike  trodden  under  foot.  In  1060  William  stood  first 
among  the  princes  of  France.  Maine  submitted  to  his 
rule.  Britanny  was  reduced  to  obedience  by  a  single  march. 
While  some  of  the  rebel  barons  rotted  in  the  Duke's 
dungeons  find  some  were  driven  into  exile,  the  land  settled 
down  into  a  peace  which  gave  room  for  a  quick  upgrowth 
of  wealth  and  culture.  Learning  and  education  found  their 
centre  in  the  school  of  Bee,  which  the  teaching  of  a  Lombard 
scholar,  Lanfranc,  raised  in  a  few  years  into  the  most 
famous  school  of  Christendom.  Lanfranc's  first  contact 
with  William,  if  it  showed  the  Duke's  imperious  temper, 
showed  too  his  marvellous  insight  into  men.  In  a  strife 
with  the  Papacy  which  William  provoked  by  his  marriage 
with  Matilda,  a  daughter  of  the  Count  of  Flanders,  Lan- 
franc took  the  side  of  Eorne.  His  opposition  was  met  by 
a  sentence  of  banishment,  and  the  Prior  had  hardly  set  out 
on  a  lame  horse,  the  only  one  his  house  could  afford,  when 
he  was  overtaken  by  the  Duke,  impatient  that  he  should 


I.]  EAKLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  HI 

quit  Normandy.     "  Give  me  a  better  horse  and  I  shall  go  CHAP.  IV. 
the    quicker,"   replied    the    imperturbable   Lombard,   and  Feudalism 
William's  wrath  passed  into  laughter  and  good  will.    From  Monarchy, 
that  hour  Lan franc  became  his  minister  and  counsellor,      954.- 
whether  for  affairs  in  the  duchy  itself  or  for  the  more      1O71t 
daring  schemes  of  ambition  which  opened  up  across  the 
Channel. 

"William's  hopes  of  the  English  crown  are  said  to  have   William 

•  J 

been  revived  by  a  storm  which  threw  Harold,  while  Enaland 
cruising  in  the  Channel,  on  the  coast  of  Ponthieu.  Its 
count  sold  him  to  the  Duke  ;  and  as  the  price  of  return  to 
England  William  forced  him  to  swear  on  the  relics  of 
saints  to  support  his  claim  to  its  throne.  But,  true  or 
no,  the  oath  told  little  011  Harold's  course.  As  the  child- 
less King  drew  to  his  grave  one  obstacle  after  another  was 
cleared  from  the  Earl's  path.  His  brother  Tostig  had 
become  his  most  dangerous  rival ;  but  a  revolt  of  the 
Northumbrians  drove  Tostig  to  Flanders,  and  the  Earl 
was  al'le  to  win  over  the  Mercian  house  of  Leofric  to  his 
cause  by  owning  Morkere,  the  brother  of  the  Mercian 
Earl  Eadwine,  as  his  brother's  successor.  His  aim  was  in 
fact  attained  without  a  struggle.  In  the  opening  of  1066 
the  nobles  and  bishops  who  gathered  round  the  death-bed 
of  the  Confessor  passed  quietly  from  it  to. the  election 
and  coronation  of  Harold.  But  at  Eouen  the  news  was 
welcomed  with  a  burst  of  furious  passion,  and  the  Duke  of 
Normandy  at  once  prepared  to  enforce  his  claim  by  arms. 
William  did  not  claim  the  Crown.  He  claimed  simply  the 
right  which  he  afterwards  used  when  his  sword  had  won 
it  of  presenting  himself  for  election  by  the  nation,  and 
he  believed  himself  entitled  so  to  present  himself  by  the 
direct  commendation  of  the  Confessor.  The  actual  elec- 
tion of  Harold  which  stood  in  his  way,  hurried  as  it  was, 
he.  did  not  recognize  as  valid.  But  with  this  constitu- 
tional claim  was  inextricably  mingled  resentment  at  the 
private  wrong  which  Harold  had  done  him,  and  a  resolve 
to  exact  vengeance  on  the  man  whom  he  regarded  as 


112 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Feudalism 

and  the 
Monarchy. 

954- 
3.O71. 


Stamford 
"Bridge. 


untrue  to  his  oath.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  his 
enterprize  were  indeed  enormous.  He  could  reckon  on  no 
support  within  England  itself.  At  home  he  had  to  extort 
the  consent  of  his  own  reluctant  baronage  ;  to  gather  a 
motley  host  from  every  quarter  of  France  and  to  keep  it 
together  for  months ;  to  create  a  fleet,  to  cut  down  the  very 
trees,  to  build,  to  launch,  to  man  the  vessels  ;  and  to  find 
time  amidst  all  this  for  the  common  business  of  govern- 
ment, for  negotiations  with  Denmark  and  the  Empire,  with 
France,  Britanny,  and  Anjou,  with  Flanders  arid  with 
Eome  which  had  been  estranged  from  England  by  Arch- 
bishop Stigand's  acceptance  of  his  pallium  from  one  who 
was  not  owned  as  a  canonical  Pope. 

BmVhis  rival's  difficulties  were  hardly  less  than  his  own. 
Harold  was  threatened  with  invasion  not  only  by  William 
but  by  his  brother  Tostig,  who  had  taken  refuge  in 
Norway  and  secured  the  aid  of  its  King,  Harald  Har- 
drada.  The  fleet  and  army  he  had  gathered  lay  watch- 
ing for  months  along  the  coast.  His  one  standing  force 
was  his  body  of  hus-carles,  but  their  numbers  only  enabled 
them  to  act  as  the  nucleus  of  an  army.  On  the  other  hand 
the  Land-fyrd  or  general  levy  of  fighting-men  was  a  body 
easy  to  raise  for  any  single  encounter  but  hard  to  keep 
together.  To  assemble  such  a  force  was  to  bring  labour  to 
a  standstill.  The  men  gathered  under  the  King's  standard 
were  the  farmers  and  ploughmen  of  their  fields.  The  ships 
were  the  fishing-vessels  of  the  coast.  In  September  the 
task  of  holding  them  together  became  impossible,  but 
their  dispersion  had  hardly  taken  place  when  the  two 
clouds  which  had  so  long  been  gathering  burst  at  once 
upon  the  realm.  A  change  of  wind  released  the  landlocked 
armament  of  William;  but  before  changing,  the  wind 
which  prisoned  the  Duke  brought  the  host  of  Tostig  and 
Harald  Hardrada  to  the  cdast  of  Yorkshire.  The  King 
hastened  with  his  household  troops  to  the  north  and 
repulsed  the  Norwegians  in  a  decisive  overthrow  at  Stam- 
ford Bridge,  but  ere  he  could  hurry  back  to  London  the 


I.] 


EAELY  ENGLAND.     449—1071. 


113 


954 
1O71. 


Norman  host  had  crossed  the  sea  and  William,  who 
had  anchored  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  September  off 
Pevensey,  was  ravaging  the  coast  to  bring  his  rival  to  an 
engagement.  His  merciless  ravages  succeeded  in  draw- 
ing Harold  from  London  to  the  south ;  but  the  King 
wisely  refused  to  attack  with  the  troops  he  had  hastily  sum- 
moned to  his  banner.  If  he  was  forced  to  give  battle,  he 
resolved  to  give  it  on  ground  he  had  himself  chosen,  and 
advancing  near  enough  to  the  coast  to  check  William's 
ravages  he  entrenched  himself  on  a  hill  known  after- 
wards as  that  of  Senlac,  a  low  spur  of  the  Sussex  downs 
near  Hastings.  His  position  covered  London  and  drove 
WiLliam  to  concentrate  his  forces.  With  a  host  subsist- 
ing by  pillage,  to  concentrate  is  to  starve ;  and  no  alter- 
native was  left  to  the  Duke  but  a  decisive  victory  or  ruin. 
On  the  fourteenth  of  October  William  led  his  men  at 
dawn  along  the  higher  ground  that  leads  from  Hastings  to 
the  battle-field  which  Harold  had  chosen.  From  the  mound 
of  Telham  the  Normans  saw  the  host  of  the  English 
gathered  thickly  behind  a  rough  trench  and  a  stockade  on 
the  height  of  Senlac.  Marshy  ground  covered  their  right; 
on  the  left,  the  most  exposed  part  of  the  position,  the  hus- 
carles  or  body-guard  of  Harold,  men  in  full  armour  and 
wielding  huge  axes,  were  grouped  round  the  Golden  Dragon 
of  Wessex  and  the  Standard  of  the  King.  The  rest  of  the 
ground  was  covered  by  thick  masses  of  half-armed  rustics 
who  had  flocked  at  Harold's  summons  to  the  fight  with  the 
stranger.  It  was  against  the  centre  of  this  formidable 
position  that  William  arrayed  his  Norman  knighthood, 
while  the  mercenary  forces  he  had  gathered  in  France  and 
Britanny  were  ordered  to  attack  its  flanks.  A  general 
charge  of  the  Norman  foot  opened  the  battle;  in  front 
rode  the  minstrel  Taillefer,  tossing  his  sword  in  the  air  and 
catching  it  again  while  he  chaunted  the  song  of  Roland. 
He  was  the  first  of  the  host  who  struck  a  blow,  and  he 
was  the  first  to  fall.  The  charge  broke  vainly  on  the 
stout  stockade  behind  which  the  English  warriors  plied 


114  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  axe  and  javelin  with  fierce  cries  of  "  Out,  out,"  and  the 
Feudalism  repulse  of  the  Norman  footmen  was  followed  by  a  repulse 
Monarchy  ot  tne  Norman  horse.  Again  and  again  the  Duke  rallied 


(l  them  to  the  fatal  stockade.  All  the  fury  of  fight 
1071.  tjiat  g]oweci  jn  his  Norseman's  blood,  all  the  headlong 
valour  that  spurred  him  over  the  slopes  of  Val-es-dunes, 
mingled  that  day  with  the  coolness  of  head,  the  dogged 
perseverance,  the  inexhaustible  faculty  of  resource  which 
shone  at  Mortemer  and  Varaville.  His  Breton  troops, 
entangled  in  the  marshy  ground  on  his  left,  broke  in 
disorder,  and  as  panic  spread  through  the  army  a  cry 
arose  that  the  Duke  was  slain.  William  tore  off  his 
helmet  ;  "  I  live,"  he  shouted,  "  and  by  God's  help  I  will 
conquer  yet."  Maddened  by  a  fresh  repulse,  the  Duke 
spurred  right  at  the  Standard;  unhorsed,  his  terrible 
mace  struck  down  Gyrth,  the  King's  brother  ;  again  dis- 
mounted, a  blow  from  his  hand  hurled  to  the  ground  an 
unmannerly  rider  who  would  not  lend  him  his  steed. 
Amidst  the  roar  and  tumult  of  the  battle  he  turned  the 
flight  he  had  arrested  into  the  means  of  victory.  Broken 
as  the  stockade  was  by  his  desperate  onset,  the  shield-wall 
of  the  warriors  behind  it  still  held  the  Normans  at  bay 
till  William  by  a  feint  of  flight  drew  a  part  of  the  English 
force  from  their  post  of  vantage.  Turning  on  his  disorderly 
pursuers,  the  Duke  cut  them  to  pieces,  broke  through  the 
abandoned  line,  and  made  himself  master  of  the  central 
ground.  Meanwhile  the  French  and  Bretons  made  good 
their  ascent  on  either  flank.  At  three  the  hill  seemed  won, 
at  six  the  fight  still  raged  around  the  Standard  where 
Harold's  hus-carles  stood  stubbornly  at  bay  on  a  spot 
marked  afterwards  by  the  high  altar  of  Battle  Abbey. 
An  order  from  the  Duke  at  last  brought  nis  archers  to  the 
front.  Their  arrow-flight  told  heavily  on  the  dense  masses 
crowded  around  the  King  and  as  the'  sun  went  down  a 
shaft  pierced  Harold's  right  eye.  He  fell  between  the 
royal  ensigns,  and  the  battle  closed  with  a  desperate  melly 
over  his  corpse. 


l.j  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449—1071.  115 

Xight  covered  the  flight  of  the  English  army :  but  CJIAP.  IV. 
William  was  quick  to  reap  the  advantage  of  his  victory.  Feudalism 
Securing  Romney  and  Dover,  he  marched  by  Canterbury  Monarch 
upon  London.  Faction  and  intrigue  were  doing  his  work  9~^i_ 
for  him  as  he  advanced  ;  for  Harold's  brothers  had  fallen  1O^1- 
with  the  King  on  the  field  of  Senlac,  and  there  was  none 
of  the  house  of  Godwine  to  contest  the  crown.  Of  the 
old  royal  line  there  remained  but  a  single  boy,  Eadgar  the 
^theling.  He  was  chosen  King;  but  the  choice  gave 
little  strength  to  the  national  cause.  The  widow  of  the 
Confessor  surrendered  Winchester  to  the  Duke.  The 
bishops  gathered  at  London  inclined  to  submission.  The 
citizens  themselves  faltered  as  William,  passing  by  their 
walls,  gave  Southwark  to  the  flames.  The  throne  of  the 
1  oy-king  really  rested  for  support  on  the  Earls  of  Mercia 
and  Xorthumbria,  Eadwine  and  Morkere;  and  William, 
crossing  the  Thames  at  Wallingford  and  marching  into 
Hertfordshire,  threatened  to  cut  them  off  from  their  earl- 
doms. The  masterly  movement  forced  the  Earls  to  hurry 
home,  and  London  gave  way  at  once.  Eadgar  himself 
was  at  the  head  of  the  deputation  who  came  to  offer  the 
crown  to  the  Xorraan  Duke.  "They  bowed  to  him/' 
says  the  English  annalist,  pathetically,  "  for  need."  They 
bowed  to  the  Norman  as  they  had  bowed  to.  the  Dane, 
and  William  accepted  the  crown  in  the  spirit  of  Cnut. 
London  indeed  was  secured  by  the  erection  of  a  fortress 
which  afterwards  grew  into  the  Tower,  but  William  desired 
to  reign  not  as  a  conqueror  but  as  a  lawful  king.  At 
Christmas  he  received  the  crown  at  Westminster  from 
the  hands  of  Archbishop  Ealdred  amid  shouts  of  "  Yea, 
Yea,"  from  his  new  English  subjects.  Fines  from  the 
greater  landowners  atoned  for  a  resistance  which  now 
counted  as  rebellion  ;  but  with  this  exception  every  mea- 
sure of  the  new  sovereign  showed  his  desire  of  ruling  as 
a  successor  of  Eadward  or  Alfred.  As  yet  indeed  the 
greater  part  of  England  remained  quietly  aloof  from  him, 
and  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  recognized  as  king 


116  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV    by  Northumberland  or  the  greater  part  of  Mercia.     But  to 

the  east  of  a  line  which  stretched  from  Norwich  to  Dorset- 
Feudalism  ,  .  .  .       , 
and  the     shire  his  rule  was  unquestioned,  and  over  this  portion  he 

^_7  ruled  as  an  English  king.  His  soldiers  were  kept  in  strict 
1071-  order.  No  change  was  made  in  law  or  custom.  The 
privileges  of  London  were  recognized  by  a  royal  writ  which 
still  remains,  the  most  venerable  of  its  muniments,  among 
the  city's  archives.  Peace  and  order  were  restored.  William 
even  attempted,  though  in  vain,  to  learn  the  English  tongue 
that  he  might  personally  administer  justice  to  the  suitor* 
in  his  court.  The  kingdom  seemed  so  tranquil  that  only  a 
few  months  had  passed  after  the  battle  of  Senlac  when 
leaving  England  in  charge  of  his  brother,  Gdo  Bishop  of 
Bayeux,  and  his  minister,  William  Fitz-Osbern,  the  King 
returned  in  1067  for  a  while  to  Normandy.  The  peace  he 
left  was  soon  indeed  disturbed.  Bishop  Odo's  tyranny  forced 
the  Kentishmen  to  seek  aid  from  Count  Eustace  of  Boulogne ; 
while  the  Welsh  princes  supported  a  similar  rising  against 
Norman  oppression  in  the  west.  But  as  yet  the  bulk  of  the 
land  held  fairly  to  the  new  king.  Dover  was  saved  from 
Eustace  ;  and  the  discontented  fled  over  sea  to  seek  refuge  in 
lands  as  far  off  as  Constantinople,  where  Englishmen  from 
this  time  formed  great  part  of  the  body-guard  or  Varangians 
of  the  Eastern  Emperors.  William  returned  to  take  his 
place  again  as  an  English  King.  It  was  with  an  English 
force  that  he  subdued  a  rising  in  the  south-west  with  Exeter 
at  its  head,  and  it  was  at  the  head  of  an  English  army  that 
he  completed  his  work  by  marching  to  the  North.  His 
march  brought  Eadwine  and  Morkere  again  to  submission ; 
a  fresh  rising  ended  in  the  occupation  of  York,  and  England 
as  far  as  the  Tees  lay  quietly  at  William's  feet. 
The  It  was  in  fact  only  the  national  revolt  of  1068  that 

XT 

aorman  transformed  the  King  into  a  conqueror.  The  signal  for 
this  revolt  came  from  Swegen,  King  of,  Denmark,  who  had 
for  two  years  past  been  preparing  to  dispute  England  with- 
the  Norman,  but  on  the  appearance  of  his  fleet  in  the 
Humber  all  northern,  all  western  and  south-western 


I.]  EARLY  ENGLAND.     449-1071.  117 

England  rose  as  one  man.  Eadgar  the  ^Etheliug  with  a  CHAP.  IV. 
baud  of  exiles  who  had  found  refuge  in  Scotland  took  the  Feudalism 
head  of  the  Northumbrian  revolt ;  in  the  south-west  the  Monarchy, 
men  of  Devon,  Somerset,  and  Dorset  gathered  to  the  sieges  954- 
of  Exeter  and  Montacute  ;  while  a  new  Norman  castle  at  1O71- 
Shrewsbury  alone  bridled  a  rising  in  the  West.  So  ably 
had  the  revolt  been  planned  that  even  William  was  taken 
by  surprize.  The  outbreak  was  heralded  by  a  storm  of 
York  and  the  slaughter  of  three  thousand  Normans  who 
formed  its  garrison.  The  news  of  this  slaughter  reached 
William  as  he  was  hunting  in  the  forest  of  Dean  ;  and  in 
a  wild  outburst  of  wrath  he  swore  "  by  the  splendour  of 
God  "  to  avenge  himself  on  the  North.  But  wrath  went 
hand  in  hand  with  the  coolest  statesmanship.  The  centre 
of  resistance  lay  in  the  Danish  fleet,  and  pushing  rapidly 
to  the  Humber  with  a  handful  of  horsemen  William  bought  . 
at  a  heavy  price  its  inactivity  and  withdrawal.  Then  turn- 
ing westward  with  the  troops  that  gathered  round  him  he 
swept  the  Welsh  border  and  relieved  Shrewsbury  while 
William  Fitz-Osbern  broke  the  rising  around  Exeter.  His 
success  set  the  King  free  to  fulfil  his  oath  of  vengeance  on 
the  North.  After  a  long  delay  before  the  flooded  waters  of 
the  Aire  he  entered  York  and  ravaged  the  whole  country  as 
far  as  the  Tees.  Town  and  village  were  harried  and  burned, 
their  inhabitants  were  slain  or  driven  over  the  Scottish 
border.  The  coast  was  especially  wasted  that  no  hold 
might  remain  for  future  landings  of  the  Danes.  Crops, 
cattle,  the  very  implements  of  husbandry  were  so  merci- 
lessly destroyed  that  a  famine  which  followed  is  said  to  have 
swept  off  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  victims.  Half  a 
century  later  indeed  the  land  still  lay  bare  of  culture  and 
deserted  of  men  for  sixty  miles  northward  of  York.  The 
work  of  vengeance  once  over,  William  led  his  army  back 
from  the  Tees  to  York,  and  thence  to  Chester  and  the 
West.  Never  had  he  shown  the  grandeur  of  his  character 
»o  memorably  as  in  this  terrible  march.  The  winter  was 
hard,  the  roads  choked  with  snowdrifts  or  broken  by 

VOL.  I.— 9 


118  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.     [BOOK  i. 

CHAP.  IV.    torrents,  provisions  failed ;  and  his  army,  storm-beaten  and 
Feudalism   f°rce(i  to  devour  its  horses  for  food,  broke  out  into  mutiny 
and  the     a£  ^ne  order  to  cross  the  bleak  moorlands  that  part  York- 
shire from  the  West.     The  mercenaries  from  Anjou  and 
Britanny  demanded  their  release  from  service.     William 
granted  their  prayer  with  scorn.     On  foot,  at  the  head  of 
the  troops  which  still  clung  to  him,  he  forced  his  way  by 
paths  inaccessible  to  horses,  often  helping  the  men  with 
his  own  hands  to  clear  the  road,  and  as  the  army  descended 
upon  Chester  the  resistance  of  the  English  died  away. 

For  two  years  William  was  able  to  busy  himself  in 
castle-building  and  in  measures  for  holding  down  the 
conquered  land.  How  effective  these  were  was  seen  when 
the  last  act  of  the  conquest  was  reached.  All  hope  of 
Danish  aid  was  now  gone,  but  Englishmen  still  looked  for 
help  to  Scotland  where  Eadgar  the  ^theling  had  again 
found  refuge  and  where  his  sister  Margaret  had  become 
wife  of  King  Malcolm.  It  was  probably  some  assurance  of 
Malcolm's  aid  which  roused. the  Mercian  Earls,  Eadwine  and 
Morkere,  to  a  fresh  rising  in  1071.  But  the  revolt  was  at 
once  foiled  by  the  vigilance  of  the  Conqueror.  Eadwine 
fell  in  an  obscure  skirmish,  while  Morkere  found  shelter 
for  a  while  in  the  fen  country  where  a  desperate  band  of 
patriots  gathered  round  an  outlawed  leader,  Hereward. 
Nowhere  had  William  found  so  stubborn  a  resistance  :  but 
a  causeway  two  miles  long  was  at  last  driven  across  the 
marshes,  and  the  last  hopes  of  English  freedom  died  in  the 
surrender  of  Ely.  It  was  as  the  unquestioned  master  of 
England  that  William  marched  to  the  North,  crossed  the 
Lowlands  and  the  Forth,  and  saw  Malcolm  appear  in  his 
camp  upon  the  Tay  to  swear  fealty  at  his  feet. 


BOOK  II. 

ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS, 
1071—1214. 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  BOOK  II. 
1071—1214. 

Among  the  Norman  chroniclers  Orderic  becomes  from  this  point 
particularly  valuable  and  detailed.  The  Chronicle  and  Florence  of 
Worcester  remain  the  primary  English  authorities,  while  Simeon  of 
Durham  gives  much  special  infonnation  on  northern  matters.  For 
the  reign  of  William  the  Red  the  chief  source  of  information  is  Eadmer, 
a  monk  of  Canterbury,  in  his  ;'Historia  Novorum"  and  "Life  of  An- 
selm."  William  of  Malmesbury  and  Henry  of  Huntingdon  are  both 
contemporary  authorities  during  that  of  Henry  the  First ;  the  latter 
remains  a  brief  but  accurate  annalist  ;  the  former  is  the  leader  of  a 
new  historic  school,  who  treat  English  events  as  part  of  the  history  of 
the  world,  and  emulate  classic  models  by  a  more  philosophical  arrange- 
ment of  their  materials.  To  these  the  opening  of  Stephen's  reign  adds 
the  "  Gesta  Stephani,"  a  record  in  great  detail  by  one  of  the  King's 
clerks,  and  the  Hexham  Chroniclers. 

All  this  wealth  of  historical  material  however  suddenly  leaves  us  in 
the  chaos  of  civil  war.  Even  the  Chronicle  dies  out  in  the  midst  of 
Stephen's  reign,  and  the  close  at  the  same  time  of  the  works  we  have 
noted  leaves  a  blank  in  our  historical  literature  which  extends  over 
the  early  years  of  Henry  the  Second.  But  this  dearth  is  followed  by 
a  vast  outburst  of  historical  industry.  For  the  Beket  struggle  we 
have  the  mass  of  the  Archbishop's  own  correspondence  with  that  of 
Foliot  and  John  of  Salisbury.  From  1169  to  1192  our  primary- 
authority  is  the  Chronicle  known  as  that  of  Benedict  of  Peterborough, 
whose  authorship  Professor  Stubbs  has  shown  to  be  more  probably  due 
to  the  royal  treasurer,  Bishop  Richard  Fitz-Neal.  This  is  continued 
to  1201  by  Roger  of  Howden  in  a  record  of  equally  official  value. 
William  of  Newborough's  history,  which  ends  in  1198,  is  a  work  of 
the  classical  school,  like  William  of  Malmesbury's.  It  is  distinguished 
by  its  fairness  and  good  sense.  To  these  may  be  added  the  Chronicle 
of  Ralph  Niger,  with  the  additions  of  Ralph  of  Coggeshall,  that 
of  Gervais  of  Canterbury,  and  the  interesting  life  of  St.  Hugh 
of  Lincoln. 

But  the  intellectual  energy  of  Henry  the  Second's  time  is  shown 
even  more  remarkably  in  the  mass  of  general  literature  which  liea 
behind  these  distinctively  historical  sources,  in  the  treatises  of  John 
of  Salisbury,  the  voluminous  works  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  the 


122  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

"  Trifles "  and  satires  of  Walter  Map,  GlaiivilPs  treatise  on  Law, 
Richard  Fitz-Neal's  "  Dialogue  on  the  Exchequer,"  to  which  we  owe 
our  knowledge  of  Henry's  financial  system,  the  romances  of  Gaimar 
and  of  Wace,  the  poem  of  the  San  Graal.  But  this  intellectual  fer- 
tility is  far  from  ceasing  with  Henry  the  Second.  The  thirteenth 
century  has  hardly  begun  when  the  romantic  impulse  quickens  even 
the  old  English  tongue  in  the  long  poem  of  Layamon.  The  Chron- 
icle of  Richard  of  Devizes  and  an  "  Itinerarium  Regis "  supplement 
Roger  of  Howden  for  Richard's  reign.  With  John  we  enter  upon  the 
Annals  of  Barnwell"  and  are  aided  by  the  invaluable  series  of  the 
Chroniclers  of  St.  Albans.  Among  the  side  topics  of  the  time,  we 
may  find  much  information  as  to  the  Jews  in  Toovey's  "Anglia 
Judaica " ;  the  Chronicle  of  Jocelyn  of  Brakelond  gives  us  a  peep 
into  social  and  monastic  life ;  the  Cistercian  revival  may  be  traced  in 
the  records  of  the  Cistercian  abbeys  in  Dugdale's  Monasticon  ;  the 
Charter  Rolls  give  some  information  as  to  municipal  history  /  and 
constitutional  developement  may  be  traced  in  the  documents  collected 
by  Professor  Stubbs  in  his  "  Select  Charters." 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE    CONQUEROR. 

1071—1085. 

IN  the  five  hundred  years  that  followed  the  landing  of  The 
Hengest  Britain  had  become  England,  and  its  conquest 
had  ended  in  the  settlement  of  its  conquerors,  in  their  con- 
version to  Christianity,  in  the  birth  of  a  national  literature, 
of  an  imperfect  civilization,  of  a  rough  political  order. 
But  through  the  whole  of  this  earlier  age  every  attempt  to 
fuse  the  various  tribes  of  conquerors  into  a  single  nation 
had  failed.  The  effort  of  Northumbria  to  extend  her  rule 
over  all  England  had  been  foiled  by  the  resistance  of 
Mercia;  that  of  Mercia  by  the  resistance  of  Wessex. 
Wessex  herself,  even  under  the  guidance  of  great  kings 
and  statesmen,  had  no  sooner  reduced  the  ^country  to  a 
seeming  unity  than  local  independence  rose  again  at  the 
call  of  the  Northmen.  The  sense  of  a  single  England  deep- 
ened with  the  pressure  of  the  invaders ;  the  monarchy  of 
Alfred  and  his  house  broadened  into  an  English  kingdom; 
but  still  tribal  jealousies  battled  with  national  unity. 
Northumbrian  lay  apart  from  West-Saxon,  Northman 
from  Englishman.  A  common  national  sympathy  held  the 
country  roughly  together,  but  a  real  national  union  had 
yet  to  come.  It  came  with  foreign  rule.  The  rule  of  the 
Danish  kings  broke  local  jealousies  as  they  had  never  been 
broken  before,  and  bequeathed  a  new  England  to  Godwins 
and  the  Confessor.  But  Cnut  was  more  Englishman  than 
Northman,  and  his  system  of  government  was  an  English 


124  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  system.  The  true  foreign  yoke  was  only  felt  when  Eng- 
^  land  saw  its  conqueror  in  William  the  Norman. 

Conqueror.  yor  nearly  a  century  and  a  half,  from  the  hour  when 
loss  William  turned  triumphant  from  the  fens  of  Ely  to  the 
hour  when  John  fled  defeated  from  Norman  shores,  our 
story  is  one  of  foreign  masters.  Kings  from  Normandy 
were  followed  by  kings  from  Aujou.  But  whether  under 
Norman  or  Angevin  Englishmen  were  a  subject  race,  con- 
quered and  ruled  by  men  of  strange  blood  and  of  strange 
speech..  And  yet  it  was  in  these  years  of  subjection  that 
England  first  became  really  England.  Provincial  differ- 
ences were  finally  crushed  into  national  unity  by  the 
pressure  of  the  stranger.  The  firm  government  of  her 
foreign  kings  secured  the  land  a  long  and  almost  un- 
broken peace  in  which  the  new  nation  grew  to  a  sense 
of  its  oneness,  and  this  consciousness  was  strengthened 
by  the  political  ability  which  in  Henry  the  First  gave 
it  administrative  order  and  in  Henry  the  Second  built  up 
the  fabric  of  its  law.  New  elements  of  social  life  were 
developed  alike  by  the  suffering  and  the  prosperity  of  the 
times.  The  wrong  which  had  been  done  by  the  degrada- 
tion of  the  free  landowner  into  a  feudal  dependant  was 
partially  redressed  by  the  degradation  of  the  bulk  of  the 
English  lords  themselves  into  a  middle  class  as  they  were 
pushed  from  their  place  by  the  foreign  baronage  who 
settled  on  English  soil ;  and  this  social  change  was  accom- 
panied by  a  gradual  enrichment  and  elevation  of  the  class 
of  servile  and  semi-servile  cultivators  which  had  lifted 
them  at  the  close  of  this  period  into  almost  complete  free- 
dom. The  middle-class  which  was  thus  created  was  rein- 
forced by  the  upgrowth  of  a  corresponding  class  in  our  towns. 
Commerce  and  trade  were  promoted  by  the  justice  and 
policy  of  the  foreign  kings ;  and  with  their  advance  rose 
the  political  importance  of  the  trader.'  The  boroughs  of 
England,  which  at  the  opening  of  this  period  were  for  the 
most  part  mere  villages,  were  rich  enough  at  its  close  to 
buy  liberty  from  the  Crown  and  to  stand  ready  for  the 


II       ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


125 


mightier  part  they  were  to  play  in  the  developement  of  our    CHAP.  I. 
parliament.      The  shame  of  conquest,   the  oppression   of        ^he 
the  conquerors,  begot  a  moral  and  religious  revival  which  Conciueror- 
raised  religion  into  a  living  thing  ;  while  the  close  con-     Joes. 
nexion  with  the  Continent  which  foreign  conquest  brought 
about  secured  for  England   a   new   communion  with  the 
artistic  and  intellectual  life  of  the  world  without  her. 

In  a  word,  it  is  to  the  stern  discipline  of  our  foreign  William 
kings  that  we  owe  not  merely  English  wealth  and  English  /j^J^,, 
freedom  but  England  herself.  And  of  these  foreign 
masters  the  greatest  was  William  of  Normandy.  In 
William  the  wild  impulses  of  the  Northman's  blood 
mingled  strangely  with  the  cool  temper  of  the  modern  states- 
man. As  he  was  the  last,  so  he  was  the  most  terrible  out- 
come of  the  northern  race.  The  very  spirit  of  the  sea-robbers 
from  whom  he  sprang  seemed  embodied  in  his  gigantic 
form,  his  enormous  strength,  his  savage  countenance,  his 
desperate  bravery,  the  fury  of  his  wrath,  the  ruthlessness 
of  his  revenge.  "  No  knight  under  Heaven,"  his  enemies 
owned,  "  was  William's  peer."  Boy  as  he  was  at  Val-es- 
dunes,  horse  and  man  went  down  before  his  lance.  All 
the  fierce  gaiety  of  his  nature  broke  out  in  the  warfare  of 
his  youth,  in  his  rout  of  fifteen  Angevins  with  but  five 
men  at  his  back,  in  his  defiant  ride  over  the  ground  which 
Geoffry  Martel  claimed  from  him,  a  ride  with  hawk  on 
fist  as  if  war  and  the  chase  were  one.  No  man  could 
bend  William's  bow.  His  mace  crashed  its  way  through 
a  ring  of  English  warriors  to  the  foot  of  the  Standard.  He 
rose  to  his  greatest  height  at  moments  when  other  men 
despaired.  His  voice  rang  out  as  a  trumpet  when  his 
soldiers  fled  before  the  English  charge  at  Senlac,  and  his 
rally  turned  the  flight  into  a  means  of  victory.  In  his 
winter  march  on  Chester  he  strode  afoot  at  the  head  of 
his  fainting  troops  and  helped  with  his  own  hand  to  clear 
a  road  through  the  snowdrifts.  And  with  the  Northman's 
daring  broke  out  the  Northman's  pitilessness.  When  the 
townsmen  of  Alenc,ou  hung  raw  hides  along  their  walls 


126 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 
The 


1071- 
1085. 


His  rule. 


in  scorn  of  the  "  tanner's "  grandson,  William  tore  out 
his  prisoners'   eyes,   hewed  off  their  hands  and  feet,  and 
Conqueror,  flung  them  into  the  town.     Hundreds  of  Hampshire  men 
were  driven  from  their  homes  to   make  him  a  huntino-- 

o 

ground  and  his  harrying  of  Northumbria  left  Northern 
England  a  desolate  waste.  Of  men's  love  or  hate  he 
recked  little.  His  grim  look,  his  pride,  his  silence,  his  wild 
outbursts  of  passion,  left  William  lonely  even  in  his 
court.  His  subjects  trembled  as  he  passed.  "  Stark  man 
he  was "  writes  the  English  chronicler  "  and  great  awe 
men  had  of  him."  His  very  wrath  was  solitary.  "  To  no 
man  spake  he  and  no  man  dared  speak  to  him  "  when  the 
news  reached  him  of  Harold's  seizure  of  the  throne..  It 
was  only,  when  he  passed  from  his  palace  to  the  loneliness 
of  the  woods  that  the  King's  tempei  unbent.  "  He  loved 
the.  wild  deer  as  though  he  had  been  their  father." 

It  was  the  genius  of  William  which  lifted  him  out  of 
this  mere  Northman  into  a  great  general  and  a  great  states- 
man. The  wary  strategy  of  his  French  campaigns,  the 
organization  of  his  attack  upon  England,  the  victory  at 
Senlac,  the  quick  resource,  the  steady  perseverance  which 
achieved  the  Conquest  showed  the  wide  range  of  his  general- 
ship. His  political  ability  had  shown  itself  from  the  first 
moment  of  his  accession  to  the  ducal  throne.  William  had 
the  instinct  of  government.  He  had  hardly  reached  man- 
hood when  Normandy  lay  peaceful  at  his  feet.  Revolt  was 
crushed.  Disorder  was  trampled  under  foot.  The  Duke 
"  could  never  love  a  robber,"  be  he  baron  or  knave.  The 
sternness  of  his  temper  stamped  itself  throughout  upon  his 
rule.  "  Stark  he  was  to  men  that  withstood  him,"  says 
the  Chronicler  of  his  English  system  of  government ;  "  so 
harsh  and  cruel  was  he  that  none  dared  withstand  his  will. 
Earls  that  did  aught  against  his  bidding  he  cast  into  bonds  • 

W  W  O  > 

bishops  he  stripped  of  their  bishopricks,  abbots  of  their 
abbacies.  He  spared  not  his  own  brother:  first  he  was 
in  the  land,  but  the  King  cast  him  into  bondage.  If 
a  man  would  live  and  hold  his  lands,  need  it  were 


HO    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


127 


joss. 


he  followed  the  King's  will."  Stern  as  such  a  rule  CHAP.  I. 
was,  its  sternness  gave  rest  to  the  land.  Even  amidst  ^ 
the  sufferings  which  necessarily  sprang  from  the  cir-  Conqueror 
cumstances  of  the  Conquest  itself,  from  the  erection  of 
castles  or  the  enclosure  of  forests  or  the  exactions  which 
built  up  William's  hoard  at  Winchester,  Englishmen  were 
unable  to  forget  "  the  good  peace  he  made  in  the  land, 
so  that  a  man  might  fare  over  his  realm  with  a  bosom  full 
of  gold."  Strange  touches  too  of  a  humanity  far  in 
advance  of  his  age  contrasted  with  this  general  temper 
of  the  Conqueror's  government.  One  of  the  strongest 
traits  in  his  character  was  an  aversion  to  shed  blood  by 
process  of  law  ;  he  formally  abolished  the  punishment  of 
death,  and  only  a  single  execution  stains  the  annuals  of  his 
reign.  An  edict  yet  more  honourable  to  his  humanity  put 
an  end  to  the  slave-trade  which  had  till  then  been  carried 
on  at  the  port  of  Bristol.  The  contrast  between  the  ruth- 
lessness  and  pitifulness  of  his  public  acts  sprang  indeed 
from  a  contrast  within  his  temper  itself.  The  pitiless 
warrior,  the  stern  and  aweful  king  was  a  tender  and 
faithful  husband,  an  affectionate  father.  The  lonely  silence 
of  his  bearing  broke  into  gracious  converse  with  pure  and 
sacred  souls  like  Anselm.  If  William  was  "  stark  "  to 
rebel  and  baron,  men  noted  that  he  was  "  mild  to  those 
that  loved  God." 

But  the  greatness  of  the  Conqueror  was  seen  in  more 
than  the  order  and  peace  which  he  imposed  upon  the  land. 
Fortune  had  given  him  one  of  the  greatest  opportunities 
ever  offered  to  a  king  of  stamping  his  own  genius  on  the 
destinies  of  a  people  ;  and  it  is  the  way  in  which  he  seized 
on  this  opportunity  which  has  set  William  among  the  fore- 
most statesmen  of  the  world.  The  struggle  which  ended 
in  the  fens  of  Ely  had  wholly  changed  his  position.  He 
no  longer  held  the  land  merely  as  its  national  and  elected 
King.  To  his  elective  right  he  added  the  right  of 
conquest.  It  is  the  way  in  which  William  grasped  and 
employed  this  double  power  that  marks  the  originality  of 


William 


128  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I.  his  political  genius,  for  the  system  of  government  which  he 
^"e  devized  was  in  fact  the  result  of  this  double  origin  of  his  rule. 
Conqueror,  j^  represented  neither  the  purely  feudal  system  of  the  Con- 
ices'  tinent  nor  the  system  of  the  older  English  royalty  :  more 
truly  perhaps  it  may  be  said  to  have  represented  both.  As 
the  conqueror  of  England  William  developed  the  military 
organization  of  feudalism  so  far  as  was  necessary  for  the 
secure  possession  of  his  conquests.  The  ground  was 
already  prepared  for  such  an  organization.  We  have  watched 
the  beginnings  of  English  feudalism  in  the  warriors,  ths 
"  companions  "  or  "  thegns  "  who  were  personally  attached 
to  the  king's  war-band  and  received  estates  from  the  folk- 
land  in  reward  for  their  personal  services.  In  later  times 
this  feudal  distribution  of  estates  had  greatly  increased  as 
the  bulk 'of  the  nobles  folio  w'ed  the  king's  example  and 
bound  their  tenants  to  themselves  by  a  similar  process  of 
subinfeudation.  The  pure  freeholders  on  the  other  hand, 
the 'class  which  formed  the  basis  of  the  original  English 
society,  had  been  gradually  reduced  in  number,  partly 
through  imitation  of  the  class  above  them,  but  more  through 
the  pressure  of  the  Danish  wars  and  the  social  disturbance 
consequent  upon  them  which  forced  these  freemen  to 
seek  protectors  among  the-  thegns  at  the  cost  of  their 
independence.  Even  before  the  reign  of  William  there- 
fore feudalism  was  superseding  the  older  freedom  in  England 
as  it  had  already  superseded  it  in  Germany  or  France. 
But  the  tendency  was  quickened  and  intensified  by  the 
Conquest.  The  desperate  and  universal  resistance  of  the 
country  forced  William  to  hold  by  the  sword  what  the  sword 
had  won ;  and  an  army  strong  enough  to  crush  at  any 
moment  a  national  revolt  was  needful  for  the  preservation 
of  his  throne.  Such  an  army  could  only  be  maintained  by 
a  vast  confiscation  of  the  soil,  and  the  failure  of  the  English 
risings  cleared  the  ground  for  its  establishment.  The  greater 
part  of  the  higher  nobility  fell  in  battle  or  fled  into  exile, 
while  the  lower  thegnhood  either  forfeited  the  whole  of  their 
lands  or  redeemed  a  portion  by  the  surrender  of  the  rest. 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  129 


We  see  the  completeness  of   the  confiscation  in  the  vast    CHAP.  I. 
estates  which  William  was  enabled  to  grant  to  his  more        ^ 
powerful  followers.    Two  hundred  manors  in  Kent  with  more  Con^ueror 
than  an  equal  number  elsewhere  rewarded  the  services  of      loss" 
his  brother  Odo,  and  grants  almost  as  large  fell  to  William's        — 
counsellors  Fitz-Osbern  and  Montgomery  or  to  barons  like 
the  Mowbrays  and  the  Clares.     But  the  poorest  soldier  of 
fortune  found  his  part  in  the  spoil.     The  meanest  Norman 
rose  to  wealth  and  power  in  this  new  dominion  of  his  lord. 
Great  or  small,  each  manor  thus  granted  was  granted  on 
condition  of  its  holder's  service  at  the  King's  call ;  a  whole 
army  was  by  this  means  encamped  upon  the  soil ;   and 
William's    summons  could   at  any  hour  gather  an  over- 
whelming force  around  his  standard. 

Such  a  force  however,  effective  as  it  was  against  the 
conquered  English,  was  hardly  less  formidable  to  the 
Crown  itself.  When  once  it  was  established,  William 
found  himself  fronted  in  his  new  realm  by  a  feudal  baron- 
age, by  the  men  whom  he  had  so  hardly  bent  to  his  will 
in  Normandy,  and  who  were  as  impatient  of  law,  as  jealous 
of  the  royal  power,  as  eager  for  an  unbridled  military  and 
judicial  independence  within  their  own  manors,  here  as 
there.  The  political  genius  of  the  Conqueror  was  shown 
in  his  appreciation  of  this  danger  and  in  the*  skill  with 
which  he  met  it.  Large  as  the  estates  he  granted  were, 
they  were  scattered  over  the  country  in  such  a  way  as  to 
render  union  between  the  great  landowners  or  the  here- 
ditary attachment  of  great  areas  of  population  to  any  one 
separate  lord  equally  impossible.  A  yet  wiser  measure 
struck  at  the  very  root  of  feudalism.  When  the  larger 
holdings  were  divided  by  their  owners  into  smaller  sub- 
tenancies, the  under-tenants  were  bound  by  the  same  con- 
ditions of  service  to  their  lord  as  he  to  the  Crown.  "  Hear, 
my  lord,"  swore  the  vassal  as  kneeling  bareheaded  and 
without  arms  he  placed  his  hands  within  those  of  his 
superior,  "  I  become  liege  man  of  yours  for  life  and  limb 
and  earthly  regard ;  and  I  will  keep  faith  and  loyalty  to 


130 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

The 
Conqueror. 

1O71- 
1085. 


William 

and 
England. 


you  for  life  and  death,  God  help  me  !  "  Then  the  kiss  of 
his  lord  invested  him  with  land  as  a  "fief"  to  descend  to 
him  and  his  heirs  for  ever.  In  other  countries  such  a 
vassal  owed  fealty  to  his  lord  against  all  foes,  be  they  king 
or  no.  By  the  usage  however  which  William  enacted  in 
England  eacli  sub-tenant,  in  addition  to  his  oath  of  fealty 
to  his  lord,  swore  fealty  directly  to  the  Crown,  and  loyalty 
to  the  King  was  thus  established  as  the  supreme  and 
universal  duty  of  all  Englishmen. 

But  the  Conqueror's  skill  was  shown  not  so  much  in 
these  inner  checks  upon  feudalism  as  in  the  counter- 
balancing forces  winch  he  provided  without  it.  He  was 
not  only  the  head  of  the  great  garrison  that  held  England 
down,  he  was  legal  and  elected-King  of  the  English  people. 
If  as  Conqueror  he  covered  the  country  with  a  new 
military  organization,  as  the  successor  of  Eadward  he 
maintained  the  judicial  and  administrative  organization 
of  the  old  English  realm.  At  the  danger  of  a  severance 
of  the  laud  between  the  greater  nobles  he  struck  a  final 
blow  by  the  abolition  of  the  four  great  earldoms.  The 
shire  became  the  largest  unit  of  local  government,  and  in 
each  shire  the  royal  nomination  of  sheriffs  for  its  adminis- 
tration concentrated  the  Afhole  executive  power  in  the 
King's  hands.  The  old  legal  constitution  of  the  country 
gave  him  the  whole  judicial  power,  and  William  was 
jealous  to  retain  and  heighten  this.  While  he  preserved 
the  local  courts  of  the  hundred  and  the  shire  he  strength- 
ened the  jurisdiction  of  the  King's  Court,  which  seems 
even  in  the  Confessor's  day  to  have  become  more  and 
more  a  court  of  highest  appeal  with  a  right  to  call  up 
all  cases  from  any  lower  jurisdiction  to  its  bar.  The 
control  over  the  national  revenue  which  had  rested  even 
in  the  most  troubled  times  in  the  hands  of  the  King  was 

O 

turned  into  a  great  financial  power  by  the  Conqueror's 
system.  Over  the  whole  face  of  the  land  a  large  part  o'f 
the  manors  were  burthened  with  special  dues  to  the  Crown : 
and  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  and  recording 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  131 


these  that  William  sent  into  each  county  the  commissioners  CHAP.  I. 
whose  enquiries  are  recorded  in  his  Domesday  Book.  A 
jury  empannelled  in  each  hundred  declared  on  oath  tne 
extent  and  nature  of  each  estate,  the  names,  number,  and 
condition  of  its  inhabitants,  its  value  before  and  after  the 
Conquest,  and  the  sums  due  from  it  to  the  Crown.  These, 
with  the  Danegeld  or  land-tax  levied  since  the  days  of 
^Ethelred,  formed  as  yet  the  main  financial  resources  of 
the  Crown,  and  their  exaction  carried  the  royal  authority 
in  its  most  direct  form  home  to  every  landowner.  But  to 
these  were  added  a  revenue  drawn  from  the  old  Crown 
domain,  now  largely  increased  by  the  confiscations  of  the 
Conquest,  the.  ever  growing  income  from  the  judicial 
"  fines  "  imposed  by  the  King's  judges  in  the  King's  courts, 
and  the  fees  and  redemptions  paid  to  the  Crown  on  the 
grant  or  renewal  of  every  privilege  or  charter.  A  new 
source  of  revenue  was  found  in  the  Jewish  traders,  many 
of  whom  followed  "William  from  Normandy,  and  who  were 
glad  to  pay  freely  for  the  royal  protection  which  enabled 
them  to  settle  in  their  quarters  or  "  Jewries  "  in  all  the 
principal  towns  of  England. 

William  found  a  yet  stronger  check  on  his  baronage  in 
the  organization  of  the  Church.  Its  old  dependence  on 
the  royal  power  was  strictly  enforced.  Prelates  were 
practically  chosen  by  the  King.  Homage  was  exacted 
from  bishop  as  from  baron.  No  royal  tenant  could  be  ex- 
communicated save  by  the  King's  leave.  No  synod  could 
legislate  without  his  previous  assent  and  subsequent  con- 
firmation of  its  decrees.  No  papal  letters  could  be 
received  within  the  realm  save  by  his  permission.  The 
King  firmly  repudiated  the  claims  which  were  beginning 
to  be  put  forward  by  the  court  of  Borne.  When  Gregory 
VII.  called  on  him  to  do  fealty  for  his  kingdom  the  King 
sternly  refused  to  admit  the  claim.  "  Fealty  I  have  never 
willed  to  do,  nor  will  I  do  it  now.  I  have  never  promised 
it,  nor  do  I  find  that  my  predecessors  did  it  to  yours." 
William's  reforms  only  tended  to  tighten  this  hold  of  the 


The 
rn\      /» 


132  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.    Crown  on  the  clergy.     Stigand  was  deposed ;  and  the  eleva- 
^       tion  of  Lanfranc  to  the  see  of  Canterbury  was  followed 
Conqueror,  ^y  fae  removal  of  most  of  the  English  prelates  and  by  the 
loss,     appointment  of  Norman  ecclesiastics  in  their  place.     The 
—       new    archbishop    did    much    to    restore    discipline,    and 
William's  own  efforts  were  no  doubt  partly  directed  by 
a  real  desire  for  the  religious  improvement  of  his  realm. 
But  the  foreign  origin  of  the  new  prelates  cut  them  off  from 
the  flocks  they  ruled  and  bound  them  firmly  to  the  foreign 
throne ;  while  their  independent  position  was  lessened  by 
a  change  which  seemed  intended  to  preserve  it.     Ecclesi- 
astical cases  had  till  now  been  decided,  like  civil  cases, 
in  shire  or  hundred-court,  where  the  bishop  sate  side  by 
side  with  ealdorman  or  sheriff.'    They  were  now  withdrawn 
from  it  to  the  separate  court  of  the  bishop.     The  change 
was  pregnant  with  future  trouble  to  the  Crown ;  but  for 
the  moment  it  told  mainly  in  removing  the  bishop  from 
his  traditional  contact  with  the  popular  assembly  and  in 
effacing  the  memory  of  the  original  equality  of  the  religious 
with  the  civil  power. 

William's  In  any  struggle  with  feudalism  a  national  king,  secure 
death.  of  ^]ie  SUpp0rt  of  the  Church,  and  backed  by  the  royal 
hoard  at  Winchester,  stood  in  different  case  from  the 
merely  feudal  sovereigns  of  the  Continent.  The  difference 
of  power  was  seen  as  soon  as  the  Conquest  was  fairly  over 
and  the  struggle  which  William  had  anticipated  opened 
between  the  baronage  and  the  Crown.  The  wisdom  of  his 
policy  in  the  destruction  of  the  great  earldoms  which  had 
overshadowed  the  throne  was  shown  in  an  attempt  at  their 
restoration  made  in  1075  by  Eoger,  the  son  of  his  minister 
William  Fitz-Osbern,  and  by  the  Breton,  Ealf  de  Guader, 
whom  the  King  had  rewarded  for  his  services  at  Senlac 
with  the  earldom  of  Norfolk.  The  rising  was  quickly  sup- 
pressed, Eoger  thrown  into  prison,  and  Ealf  driven  over  sea. 
The  intrigues  of  the  baronage  soon  found  another  leader  in 
William's  half-brother,  the  Bishop  of  Bayeux.  Under 
pretence  of  aspiring  by  arms  to  the  papacy  Bishop  Odo 


II.]    EITGLAND  UNDER  FOKEIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  133 

collected  money  and  men,  but  the  treasure  was  at  once  seized  CHAP.  I. 
by  tho  royal  officers  and  the  Bishop  arrested  in  the  midst  ^ 
of  the  court.  Even  at  the  King's  bidding  no  officer  would  Conqueror 
venture  to  seize  on  a  prelate  of  the  Church ;  and  it  was  ioas. 
with  his  own  hands  that  William  was  forced  to  effect  his 
arrest.  The  Conqueror  was  as  successful  against  foes  from 
without  as  against  foes  from  within.  The  fear  of  the  Danes, 
which  had  so  long  hung  like  a  thunder-cloud  over  England, 
pissed  away  before  the  host  which  William  gathered  in 
1 385  to  meet  a  great  armament  assembled  by  King  Cnut. 
A  mutiny  dispersed  the  Danish  fleet,  and  the  murder  of 
its  King  removed  all  peril  from  the  North.  Scotland, 
already  humbled  by  William's  invasion,  was  bridled  by 
the  erection  of  a  strong  fortress  at  Newcastle-upon-Tyne ; 
and  after  penetrating  with  his  army  to  the  heart  of  Wales 
the  King  commenced  its  systematic  reduction  by  settling 
three  of  his  great  barons  along  its  frontier.  It  was  not 
till  his  closing  years  that  William's  unvarying  success  was 
troubled  by  a  fresh  outbreak  of  the  Norman  baronage 
under  his  son  Robert  and  by  an  attack  which  he  was  forced 
to  meet  in  1087  from  France;  Its  King  mocked  at  the 
Conqueror's  unwieldy  bulk  and  at  the  sickness  which 
bound  him  to  his  bed  at  Kouen.  "  King  William  has 
as  long  a  lying-in,"  laughed  Philip,  "as  a  woman 
behind  her  curtains."  "  When  I  get  up,"  William 
swore  grimly,  "I  will  go  to  mass  in  Philip's-land  and 
bring  a  rich  offering  for  my  churching.  I  will  offer  a 
thousand  candles  for  my  fee.  Flaming  brands  shall  they 
be,  and  steel  shall  glitter  over  the  fire  they  make."  At 
harvest-tide  town  and  hamlet  flaring  into  ashes  along 
the  French  border  fulfilled  the  ruthless  vow.  But  as  the 
King  rode  down  the  steep  street  of  Mantes  which  he  had 
given  to  the  flames  his  horse  stumbled  among  the  embers, 
and  William  was  flung  heavily  against  his  saddle.  He 
was  borne  home  to  Kouen  to  die.  The  sound  of  the  minster 
bell  woke  him  at  dawn  as  he  lay  in  the  convent  of  St. 
Gervais,  overlooking  the  city — it  was  the  hour  of  prime 

YOL.  I.— 10 


134  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  [BOOK  n. 

CHAP.  I.    — and  stretching  out  his  hands  in  prayer  the  King  passed 

^       quietly  away.     Death  itself  took  its  colour  from  the  savage 

Conqueror.  soiitude  of  his  life.     Priests  and  nobles  fled  as  the  last 

lossi     breath  left  him,  and  the  Conqueror's  body  lay  naked  and 

lonely  on  the  floor. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  NORMAN  KINGS. 

1085—1154. 

WITH  the  death  of  the  Conqueror  passed  the  terror  which  William 
had  held  the  barons  in  awe,  while  the  severance  of  his  **  Bed. 
dominions  roused  their  hopes  of  successful  resistance  to 
the  stern  rule  beneath  which  they  had  bowed.  William  be- 
queathed Normandy  to  his  eldest  son  Eobert ;  but  William 
the  Red,  his  second  son,  hastened  with  his  father's  ring  to 
England  where  the  influence  of  Lanfranc  secured  him  the 
crown.  The  baronage  seized  the  opportunity  to  rise  in 
arms  under  pretext  of  supporting  the  claims  of  Robert, 
whose  weakness  of  character  gave  full  scope  for. the  growth 
of  feudal  independence ;  and  Bishop  Odo,  now  freed  from 
prison,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  revolt.  The  new 
King  was  thrown  almost  wholly  on  the  loyalty  of  his 
English  subjects.  But  the  national  stamp  which  William 
had  given  to  his  kingship  told  at  once.  The  English  rallied 
to  the  royal  standard  ;  Bishop  Wulfstan  of  Worcester,  the 
one  surviving  Bishop  of  English  blood,  defeated  the 
insurgents  in  the  West ;  while  the  King,  summoning  the 
freemen  of  country  and  town  to  his  host  under  pain  of 
being  branded  as  "  nithing  "  or  worthless,  advanced  with  a 
large  force  against  Rochester  where  the  barons  were  con- 
centrated. A  plague  which  broke  out  among  the  garrison 
forced  them  to  capitulate,  and  as  the  prisoners  passed 
through  the  royal  army  cries  of  "  gallows  and  cord  "  burst 


136 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

Norman 
Kings. 

1O85- 
£154. 


from  the  English  ranks.  The  failure  of  a  later  conspiracy 
whose  aim  was  to  set  on  the  throne  a  kinsman  of  the  royal 
house,  Stephen  of  Albemarle,  with  the  capture  and  im- 
prisonment of  its  head,  Robert  Mowbray,  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland,  brought  home  at  last  to  the  baronage 
their  helplessness  in  a  strife  with  the  King.  The  genius 
of  the  Conqueror  had  saved  England  from  the  danger  of 
feudalism.  But  he  had  left  as  weighty  a  danger  in  the 
power  which  trod  feudalism  under  foot.  The  power  of 
the  Crown  was  a  purely  personal  power,  restrained  under 
the  Conqueror  by  his  own  high  sense  of  duty,  but  capable 
of  becoming  a  pure  despotism  in  the  hands  of  his  son. 
The  nobles  were  at  his  feet,  and  the  policy  of  his  minister, 
Bishop  Flambard  of  Durham,  loaded  their  estates  with 
feudal  obligations.  Each  tenant  was  held  as  bound  to 
appear  if  needful  thrice  a  year  at  the  royal  court,  to  pay  a 
heavy  fine  or  rent  on  succession  to  his  estate,  to  contribute 
aid  in  case  of  the  King's  capture  in  war  or  the  knighthood 
of  the  King's  eldest  son  or  the  marriage  of  his  eldest 
daughter.  An  heir  who  was  still  a  minor  passed  into  the 
King's  wardship,  and  all  profit  from  his  lands  went  during 
the  period  of  wardship  to  the  King.  v  If  the  estate  fell  to  an 
heiress,  her  hand  was  at  the  King's  disposal  and  was 
generally  sold  by  him  to  the  highest  bidder.  These  rights  of 
"  marriage  "  and  "  wardship  "  as  well  as  the  exaction  of  aids 
at  the  royal  will  poured  wealth  into  the  treasury  while  they 
impoverished  and  fettered  the  baronage.  A  fresh  source 
of  revenue  was  found  in  the  Church.  The  same  principles 
of  feudal  dependence  were  applied  to  its  lands  as  to  those 
of  the  nobles ;  and  during  the  vacancy  of  a  see  or  abbey 
its  profits,  like  those  of  a  minor,  were  swept  into  the 
royal  hoard.  William's  profligacy  and  extravagance  soon 
tempted  him  to  abuse  this  resource,  and  so  steadily  did 
he  refuse  to  appoint  successors  to  prelates  whom  death 
removed  that  at  the  close  of  his  reign  one  archbishop- 
rick.,  four  bishopricks,  and  eleven  abbeys  were  found  to 
be  without  pastors. 


H.J     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  137 

Vile  as  was  this  system  of  extortion  and  misrule  but  a  CHAP. 
single  voice  was  raised  in  protest  against  it.  Lanfranc  had 
been  followed  in  his  abbey  at  Bee  by  the  most  famous  of 
his  scholars,  Anselm  of  Aosta,  an  Italian  like  himself. 
Friends  as  they  were,  no  two  men  could  be  more  strangely 
unlike.  Anselm  had  grown  to  manhood  in  the  quiet 
solitude  of  his  mountain-valley,  a  tender-hearted  poet- 
dreamer,  with  a  soul  pure  as  the  Alpine  snows  above  him, 
and  an  intelligence  keen  and  clear  as  the  mountain-air. 
The  whole  temper  of  the  man  was  painted  in  a  dream  of 
his  youth.  It  seemed  to  him  as  though  heaven  lay,  a 
stately  palace,  amid  the  gleaming  hill-peaks,  wrhile  the 
women  reaping  in  the  corn-fields  of  the  valley  became 
harvest-maidens  of  its  King.  They  reaped  idly,  and 
Anselm,  grieved  at  their  sloth,  hastily  climbed  the  moun- 
tain side  to  accuse  them  to  their  lord.  As  he  reached 
the  palace  the  King's  voice  called  him  to  his  feet  and  he 
poured  forth  his  tale ;  then  at  the  royal  bidding  bread  of 
an  unearthly  whiteness  was  set  before  him,  and  he  ate  and 
was  refreshed.  The  dream  passed  with  the  morning ;  but  the 
sense  of  heaven's  nearness  to  earth,  the  fervid  loyalty  to 
the  service  of  his  Lord,  the  tender  restfulness  and  peace  in 
the  Divine  presence  which  it  reflected  lived  on  in  the  life 
of  Anselm.  Wandering  like  other  Italian .  scholars  to 
Normandy,  he  became  a  monk  under  Lanfranc,  and 
on  his  teacher's  removal  to  higher  duties  succeeded 
him  in  the  direction  of  the  Abbey  of  Bee.  No  teacher 
has  ever  thrown  a  greater  spirit  of  love  into  his  toil. 
"Force  your  scholars  to  improve  !"  he  burst  out  to  another 
teacher  who  relied  on  blows  and  compulsion.  "  Did  you 
ever  see  a  craftsman  fashion  a  fair  image  out  of  a  golden 
plate  by  blows  alone  ?  Does  he  not  now  gently  press  it  and 
strike  it  with  his  tools,  now  with  wise  art  yet  more  gently 
raise  and  shape  it  ?  What  do  your  scholars  turn  into  under 
this  ceaseless  beating?"  "They  turn  only  brutal,"  was 
the  reply.  "  You  have  bad  luck,"  was  the  keen  answer, 
"in  a  training  that  only  turns  men  into,  beasts."  The 


138 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


•CHAP.  II. 


1085- 
1154. 


William 

and 
Anselm. 


worst  natures  softened  before  this  tenderness  and  patience. 
Even  the  Conqueror,  so  harsh  and  terrible  to  others, 
became  another  man,  gracious  and  easy  of  speech,  with 
Anselm.  But  amidst  his  absorbing  cares  as  a  teacher,  the 
Prior  of  Bee  found  time  for  philosophical  speculations  to 
which  we  owe  the  scientific  inquiries  which  built  up 
the  theology  of  the  middle  ages.  His  famous  works  were 
the  first  attempts  of  any  Christian  thinker  to  elicit  the 
idea  of  God  from  the  very  nature  of  the  human  reason. 
His  passion  for  abstruse  thought  robbed  him  of  food  and 
sleep.  Sometimes  he  could  hardly  pray.  Often  the  night 
was  a  long  watch  till  he  could  seize  his  conception  and 
write  it  on  the  wax  tablets  which  lay  beside  him.  But 
not  even  a  fever  of  intense  thought  such  as  this  could  draw 
Anselm's  heart  from  its  passionate  tenderness  and  love. 
Sick  monks  in  the  infirmary  could  relish  no  drink  save  the 
juice  which  his  hand  squeezed  for  them  from  the  grape- 
bunch.  In  the  later  days  of  his  archbishoprick  a  hare 
chased  by  the  hounds  took  refuge  under  his  horse,  and  his 
gentle  voice  grew  loud  as  he  forbade  a  huntsman  to  stir 
in  the  chase  while  the  creature  darted  off  again  to  the 
woods.  Even  the  greed  of  lands  for  the  Church  to  which 
so  many  religious  men  yielded  found  its  characteristic 
rebuke  as  the  battling  lawyers  in  such  a  suit  saw  Anselm 
quietly  close  his  eyes  in  court  and  go  peacefully  to  sleep. 

A  stdden  impulse  of  the  Eed  King  drew  the  abbot 
from  these  quiet  studies  into  the  storms  of  the  world. 
The  see  of  Canterbury  had  long  been  left  without  a  Primate 
when  a  dangerous  illness  frightened  the  King  into  the  pro- 
motion of  Anselm.  The  Abbot,  who  happened  at  the 
time  to  be  in  England  on  the  business  of  his  house,  was 
dragged  to  the  royal  couch  and  the  cross  forced  into  his 
hands.  But  William  had  no  sooner  recovered  from  his 
sickness  than  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with  an  oppo- 
nent whose  meek  and  loving  temper  rose  into  firmness  and 
grandeur  when  it  fronted  the  tyranny  of  the  King.  Much 
of  the  struggle  between  William  and  the  Archbishop  turned 


II.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


139 


on  questions  such  as  the  right  of  investiture,  which  have 
little  bearing  on  our  history,  but  the  particular  question  at 
issue  was  of  less  importance  than  the  fact  of  a  contest  at 
all.  The  boldness  of  Anselm's  attitude  not  only  broke  the 
tradition  of  ecclesiastical  servitude  but  infused  through 
the  nation  at  large  a  new  spirit  of  independence.  The 
real  character  of  the  strife  appears  in  the  Primate's  answer 
when  his  remonstrances  against  the  lawless  exactions 
from  the  Church  were  met  by  a  demand  for  a  present 
on  his  own  promotion,  and  his  first  offer  of  five  hundred 
pounds  was  contemptuously  refused.  "  Treat  me  as  a  free 
man,"  Anselm  replied,  "  and  I  devote  myself  and  all  that 
I  have  to  your  service,  but  if  you  treat  me  as  a  slave  you 
shall  have  neither  me  nor  mine."  A  burst  of  the  Red 
King's  fury  drove  the  Archbishop  from  court,  and  he  finally 
decided  to  quit  the  country,  but  his  example  had  not  been 
lost,  and  the  close  of  William's  reigii  found  a  new  spirit  of 
freedom  in  England  with  which  the  greatest  of  the  Con- 
queror's sons  was  glad  to  make  terms.  His  exile  how- 
ever left  William  without  a  check.  Supreme  at  home,  he 
was  full  of  ambition  abroad.  As  a  soldier  the  Red  King 
was  little  inferior  to  his  father.  Normandy  had  been 
pledged  to  him  by  his  brother  Robert  in  exchange  for  a 
sum  which  enabled  the  Duke  to  march  in  the  first  Crusade 
for  the  delivery  of  the  Holy  Land,  and  a  rebellion  at  Le 
Mans  was  subdued  by  the  fierce  energy  with  which  William 
flung  himself  at  the  news  of  it  into  the  first  boat  he  found, 
and  crossed  the  Channel  in  face  of  a  storm.  "  Kings  never 
drown,"  he  replied  contemptuously  to  the  remonstrances  of 
his  followers.  Homage  was  again  wrested  from  Malcolm 
by  a  march  to  the  Firth  of  Forth,  and  the  subsequent 
death  of  that  king  threw  Scotland  into  a  disorder  which 
enabled  an  army  under  Eadgar  ^Etheling  to  establish 
Edgar,  the  son  of  Margaret,  as  an  English  feudatory  on 
the  throne.  In  Wales  William  was  less  triumphant,  and 
the  terrible  losses  inflicted  on  the  heavy  Norman  cavalry 
in  the  fastnesses  of  Snowdon  forced  him  to  fall  back  on 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

Norman 
Kings. 

1085 
1154 


140  HISTOttY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  the  slower  but  wiser  policy  of  the  Conqueror.  But  triumph 
^  and  defeat  alike  ended  in  a  strange  and  tragical  close.  In 

^™|n  1100  the  Eed  King  was  found  dead  by  peasants  in  a  glade 
loss-  °f  ^e  -^ew  Forest,  with  the  arrow  either  of  a  hunter  or 
115A-  an  assassin  in  his  breast. 

Henry  the  Robert  was  at  this  moment  on  his  return  from  the  Holy 
First.  j^n^  where  his  bravery  had  redeemed  much  of  his  earlier 
ill-fame,  and  the  English  crown  was  seized  by  his  younger 
brother  Henry  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  baronage, 
who  clung  to  the  Duke  of  Normandy  and  the  union  of 
their  estates  on  both  sides  the  Channel  under  a  single 
ruler.  Their  attitude  threw  Henry,  as  it  had  thrown 
Eufus,  on  the  support  of  the  .English,  and  the  two  great 
measures  which  followed  his  coronation,  his  grant  of  a 
charter,  and  his  marriage  with  Matilda,  mark  the  new 
relation  which  this  support  brought  about  between  the 
people  and  their  King.  Henry's  Charter  is  important,  not 
merely  as  a  direct  precedent  for  the  Great  Charter  of  John, 
but  as  the  first  limitation  on  the  despotism  established  by 
the  Conqueror  and  carried  to  such  a  height  by  his  son. 
The  "  evil  customs  "  by  which  the  Eed  King  had  enslaved 
and  plundered  the  Church  were  explicitly  renounced  in  it, 
the  unlimited  demands  made  by  both  the  Conqueror  and 
his  son  on  the  baronage  exchanged  for  customary  fees, 
while  the  rights  of  the  people  itself,  though  recognized 
more  vaguely,  were  not  forgotten.  The  barons  were  held 
to  do  justice  to  their  under-tenants  and  to  renounce  tyran- 
nical exactions  from  them,  the  King  promising  to  restore 
order  and  the  "  law  of  Eadward,"  the  old  constitution  of 
the  realm,  with  the  changes  which  his  father  had  intro- 
duced. His  marriage  gave  a  significance  to  these  promises 
which  the  meanest  English  peasant  could  understand. 
Edith,  or  Matilda,  was  the  daughter  of  King  Malcolm  of 
Scotland  and  of  Margaret,  the  sister  of  Eadgar  ^Etheling. 
She  had  been  brought  up  in  the  nunnery  of  Eomsey  by  its 
abbess,  her  aunt  Christina,  and  the  veil  which  she  had 
taken  there  formed  an  obstacle  to  her  union  with  the  King 


ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


141 


which,  was  only  removed  by  the  wisdom  of  Anselm. 
While  Flambard,  the  embodiment  of  the  Eed  King's  des- 
potism, was  thrown  into  the  Tower,  the  Archbishop's  recall 
had  been  one  of  Henry's  first  acts  after  his  accession. 
Matilda  appeared  before  his  court  to  tell  her  tale  in  words 
of  passionate  earnestness.  She  had  been  veiled  in  her 
childhood,  she  asserted,  only  to  save  her  from  the  insults  of 
the  rude  soldiery  who  infested  the  land,  had  flung  the  veil 
from  her  again  and  again,  and  had  yielded  at  last  to  the 
tin  womanly  taunts,  the  actual  blows  of  her  aunt.  "  As 
often  as  I  stood  in  her  presence,"  the  girl  pleaded,  "  I  wore 
the  veil,  trembling  as  I  wore  it  with  indignation  and  grief. 
But  as  soon  as  I  could  get  out  of  her  sight  I  used  to  snatch 
it  from  my  head,  fling  it  on  the  ground,  and  trample  it 
under  foot.  That  was  the  way,  and  none  other,  in  which  I 
was  veiled."  Anselm  at  once  declared  her  free  from  con- 
ventual bonds,  and  the  shout  of  the  English  multitude 
when  he  set  the  crown  on  Matilda's  brow  drowned  the 
murmur  of  Churchman  or  of  baron.  The  mockery  of  the 
Norman  nobles,  who  nicknamed  the  King  and  his  spouse 
Godric  and  Godgifu,  was  lost  in  the  joy  of  the  people  at 
large.  For  the  first  time  since  the  Conquest  an  English 
sovereign  sat  on  the  English  throne.  The  blood  of  Cerdic 
and  Alfred  was  to  blend  itself  with  that  of  Rolf  and  the 
Conqueror.  Henceforth  it  was  impossible  that  the  two 
peoples  should  remain  parted  from  each  other;  so  quick 
indeed  was  their  union  that  the  very  name  of  Norman  had 
passed  away  in  half  a  century,  and  at  the  accession  of 
Henry's  grandson  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  between 
the  descendants  of  the  conquerors  and  those  of  the  con- 
quered at  Senlac. 

Charter  and  marriage  roused  an  enthusiasm  among 
his  subjects  which  enabled  Henry  to  defy  the  claims  of 
his  brother  and  the  disaffection  of  his  nobles.  .Early  in 
1101  Eobert  landed  at  Portsmouth  to  win  the  crown  in 
arms.  The  great  barons  with  hardly  an  exception  stood 
aloof  from  the  Kins.  But  the  Norman  Duke  found 


CHAP.  II 

The 

Norman 
Kings. 

1085 
1154. 


Benrt/ 
and  the. 
Barons. 


142  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  himself  face  to  face  with  an  English  army  which 
The  gathered  at  Anselm's  summons  round  Henry's  standard. 
^ings11  The  temper  of  the  English  had  rallied  from  the  panic  of 
loss-  Senlac.  The  soldiers  who  came  to  fight  for  their  King 
1154-.  «  nowjse  feared  the  Normans."  As  Henry  rode  along  their 
lines  showing  them  how  to  keep  firm  their  shield-wall 
against  the  lances  of  Robert's  knighthood,  he  was  met 
with  shouts  for  battle.  But  King  and  Duke  alike  shrank 
from  a  contest  in  which  the  victory  of  either  side  would 
have  undone  the  Conqueror's  work.  The  one  saw  his  effort 
was  hopeless,  the  other  was  only  anxious  to  remove  his 
rival  from  the  realm,  and  by  a  peace  which  the  Count  of 
Meulan  negotiated  Eobert  recDgnized  Henry  as  King  of 
England  while  Henry  gave  up  his  fief  in  the  Cotentin  to 
his  brother  the  Duke.  Robert's  retreat  left  Henry  free  to 
deal  sternly  with  the  barons  who  had  forsaken  him. 
Robert  de  Lacy  was  stripped  of  his  manors  in  Yorkshire ; 
Robert  Malet  was  driven  from  his  lands  in  Suffolk ;  Ivo 
of  Grantmesnil  lost  his  vast  estates  and  went  to  the  Holy 
Land  as  a  pilgrim.  But  greater  even  than  these  was 
Robert  of  Belesme,  the  son  of  Roger  of  Montgomery,  who 
held  in  England  the  earldoms  of  Shrewsbury  and  Arundel, 
while  in  Normandy  he  was  Count  of  Ponthieu  and 
Alenc,on.  Robert  stood  at  the  head  of  the  baronage  in 
wealth  and  power :  and  his  summons  to  the  King's  Court 
to  answer  for  his  refusal  of  aid  to  the  King  was  answered 
by  a  haughty  defiance.  But  again  the  Norman  baronage 
had  to  feel  the  strength  which  English  loyalty  gave  to  the 
Crown.  Sixty  thousand  Englishmen  followed  Henry  to 
the  attack  of  Robert's  strongholds  along  the  Welsh  border. 
It  was  in  vain  that  the  nobles  about  the  King,  conscious 
that  Robert's  fall  left  them  helpless  in  Henry's  hands, 
strove  to  bring  about  a  peace.  The  English  soldiers  shouted 
"  Heed  not  these  traitors,  our  lord  King  Henry,"  and  with 
the  people  at  his  back  the  King  stood  firm.  Only  an  early 
surrender  saved  Robert's  life.  He  was  suffered  to  retire 
to  his  estates  in  Normandy,  but  his  English  lands  were 


ii.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071-1214.  143 

confiscated  to  the  Crown.    "Rejoice,  King  Henry,"  shouted    CHAP.  II. 
the  English  soldiers,  "  for  you  began  to  be  a  free  King  on       ^ 
that  day  when  you  conquered  Robert  of  Belesme  and  drove     IKingas11 
him  from  the  land."     Master  of  his  own  realm  and  en-      IQSS- 
riched  by  the  confiscated  lands  of  the  ruined  barons  Henry      x^5' 
crossed  into  Normandy,  where  the  misgovernment  of  the 
Duke  had  alienated  the  clergy  and  tradesfolk,  and  where 
the  outrages  of  nobles  like  Robert  of  Belesme  forced  the 
more  peaceful  classes  to  call  the  King  to  their  aid.     In 
1106  his  forces  met  those  of  his  brother  on  the  field  of 
Tenchebray,  and  a  decisive  English  victory  on  Norman  soil 
avenged  the  shame  of  Hastings.     The   conquered  duchy 
became  a  dependency  of  the  English  crown,  and  Henry's 
energies  were  frittered  away  through  a  quarter  of  a  century 
in  crushing  its  revolts,  the   hostility  of  the  French,  and 
the  efforts  of  his  nephew  William  the  son  of  Robert,  to 
regain  the  crown  which  his  father  had  lost. 

With  the  victory  of  Tenchebray  Henry  was  free  to  enter  Henry  s 
on  that  work  of  administration  which  was  to  make  his  " 
reign  memorable  in  our  history.  Successful  as  his  wars 
had  been  he  was  in  heart  no  warrior  but  a  statesman,  and 
his  greatness  showed  itself  less  in  the  field  than  in  thc- 
council  chamber.  His  outer  bearing  like  his  inner  temper 
stood  in  marked  contrast  to  that  of  his  father.  Well 
read,  accomplished,  easy  and  fluent  of  speech,  the  lord  of 
a  harem  of  mistresses,  the  centre  of  a  gay  court  where 
poet  and  jongleur  found  a  home,  Henry  remained  cool, 
self-possessed,  clear-sighted,  hard,  methodical,  loveless 
himself,  and  neither  seeking  nor  desiring  his  people's  love, 
but  wringing  from  them  their  gratitude  and  regard  by 
sheer  dint  of  good  government.  His  work  of  order  was 
necessarily  a  costly  work ;  and  the  steady  pressure  of  his 
taxation,  a  pressure  made  the  harder  by  local  famines  and 
plagues  during  his  reign,  has  left  traces  of  the  grumbling 
it  roused  in  the  pages  of  the  English  Chronicle.  But  even 
the  Chronicler  is  forced  to  own  amidst  his  grumblings  that 
Henry  "  was  a  good  man,  and  great  was  the  awe  of  him." 


144 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II. 


1085 
1154. 


He  had  little  of  his  father's  creative  genius,  of  that  far- 
reaching  originality  by  which  the  Conqueror  stamped 
himself  and  his  will  on  the  very  fabric  of  our  history. 
But  he  had  the  passion  for  order,  the  love  of  justice,  the 
faculty  of  organization,  the  power  of  steady  and  unwaver- 
ing rule,  which  was  needed  to  complete  the  Conqueror's 
work.  His  aim  was  peace,  and  the  title  of  the  Peace- 
loving  King  which  was  given  him  at  his  death  showed 
with  what  a  steadiness  and  constancy  he  carried  out  his 
aim.  In  Normandy  indeed  his  work  was  ever  and  anon 
undone  by  outbreaks  of  its  baronage,  outbreaks  sternly 
repressed  only  that  the  work  might  be  patiently  and  calmly 
taken  up  again  where  it  had  been  broken  off.  But  in 
England  his  will  was  carried  out  with  a  perfect  success. 
For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  land  had  rest. 
Without,  the  Scots  were  held  in  friendship,  the  Welsh 
were  bridled  by  a  steady  and  well-planned  scheme  of 
gradual  conquest.  Within,  the  licence  of  the  baronage 
was  held  sternly  down,  and  justice  secured  for  all.  "  He 
governed  with  a  strong  hand,"  says  Orderic,  but  the  strong 
hand  was  the  hand  of  a  king,  not  of  a  tyrant.  "  Great 
was  the  awe  of  him,"  writes  the  annalist  of  Peterborough. 
"  No  man  durst  ill-do  to  another  in  his  days.  Peace  he 
made  for  man  and  beast."  Pitiless  as  were  the  blows  he 
aimed  at  the  nobles  who  withstood  him,  they  were  blows 
which  his  English  subjects  felt  k>  be  struck  in  their  cause. 
"  While  he  mastered  by  policy  the  foremost  counts  and 
lords  and  the  boldest  tyrants,  he  ever  cherished  and 
protected  peaceful  men  and  men  of  religion  and  men  of 
the  middle  class."  What  impressed  observers  most  was 
the  unswerving,  changeless  temper  of  his  rule.  The  stern 
justice,  the  terrible  punishments  he  inflicted  on  all  who 
broke  his  laws,  were  parts  of  a  fixed  system  which  differed 
widely  from  the  capricious  severity  of  a  mere  despot. 
Hardly  less  impressive  was  his  unvarying  success.  Heavy 
as  were  the  blows  which  destiny  levelled  at  him,  Henry 
bore  and  rose  unconquered  from  all.  To  the  end  of  his  life 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


145 


Henry's 
Adminis- 
tration. 


the  proudest  barons  lay  bound  and  blinded  in  his  prison.  CHAP.  II. 
His  hoard  grew  greater  and  greater.     Normandy,  toss  as        ^ 
she  might,  lay  helpless  at  his  feet  to  the  last.     In  England     ^f^sn 
it  was  only  after  his   death  that  men  dared  mutter  what      loTTs- 
evil  things  they  had  thought  of  Henry  the  Peace-lover,  or      1154j 
censure  the  pitilessness,  the  greed,  and  the  lust  which  had 
blurred  the  wisdom  and  splendour  of  his  rule. 

His  vigorous  administration  carried  out  into  detail  the 
system  of  government  which  the  Conqueror  had  sketched. 
The  vast  estates  which  had  fallen  to  the  crown  through 
revolt  and  forfeiture  were  granted  out  to  new  men  de- 
pendent on  royal  favour.  On  the  ruins  of  the  great 
feudatories  whom  he  had  crushed  Henry  built  up  a  class 
of  lesser  nobles,  whom  the  older  barons  of  the  Conquest 
looked  down  on  in  scorn,  but  who  were  strong  enough 
to  form  a  counterpoise  to  their  influence  while  they  fur- 
nished the  Crown  with  a  class  of  useful  administrators 
whom  Henry  employed  as  his  sheriffs  and  judges.  A  new 
organization  of  justice  and  finance  bound  the  kingdom 
more  tightly  together  in  Henry's  grasp.  The  Clerks  of 
the  Royal  Chapel  were  formed  into  a  body  of  secretaries 
or  royal  ministers,  whose  head  bore  the  title  of  Chancellor. 
Above  them  stood  the  Justiciar,  or  Lieutenant- General  of 
the  kingdom,  who  in  the  frequent  absence  of  the  King 
acted  as  Regent  of  the  realm,  and  whose  staff,  selected 
from  the  barons  connected  with  the  royal  household,  were 
formed  into  a  Supreme  Court  of  the  realm.  The  King's 
Court,  as  this  was  called,  permanently  represented  the 
whole  court  of  royal  vassals  which  had  hitherto  been 
summoned  thrice  in  the  year.  As  the  royal  council,  it 
revised  and  registered  laws,  and  its  "  counsel  and  consent," 
though  merely  formal,  preserved  the  principle  of  the  older 
popular  legislation.  As  a  court  of  justice  it  formed  the 
highest  court  of  appeal :  it  could  call  up  any  suit  from  a 
lower  tribunal  on  the  application  of  a  suitor,  while  the 
union  of  several  sheriffdoms  under  some  of  its  members 
connected  it  closely  with  the  local  courts.  As  a  financial 


146 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1085 
1154. 


CHAP.  II.  body,  its  chief  work  lay  in  the  assessment  and  collection 
™"  of  the  revenue.  In  this  capacity  it  took  the  name  of  the 
Norman  Qourt  of  Exchequer  from  the  chequered  table,  much  like 
a  chess-board,  at  which  it  sat  and  on  which  accounts  were 
rendered.  In  their  financial  capacity  its  justices  became 
"  barons  of  the  Exchequer."  Twice  every  year  the  sheriff 
of  each  county  appeared  before  these  barons  and  rendered 
the  sum  of  the  fixed  rent  from  royal  domains,  the  Danegeld 
or  land  tax,  the  fines  of  the  local  courts,  the  feudal  aids  from 
the  baronial  estates,  which  formed  the  chief  part  of  the 
royal  revenue.  Local  disputes  respecting  these  payments 
or  the  assessment  of  the  town-rents  were  settled  by  a  detach- 
ment of  barons  from  the  court  -who  made  the  circuit  of  the 
shires,  and  whose  fiscal  visitations  led  to  the  judicial  visi- 
tations, the  "judges'  circuits,"  which  still  form  so  marked 
a  feature  in  our  legal  system. 

Measures  such  as  these  changed  the  whole  temper  of  the 
Norman  rule.     It  remained  a  despotism,  but  from  this 
moment  it  was  a  despotism  regulated  and  held  in  check 
by  the  forms  of  administrative  routine.     Heavy  as  was  the 
taxation  under  Henry  the  First,  terrible  as  was  the  suffer- 
ing throughout  his  reign  from  famine  and  plague,  the  peace 
and  order  which  his  government  secured  through  thirty 
years  won  a  rest   for  the  land  in   which  conqueror  and 
conquered  blended  into  a  single  people  and  in  which  this 
people  slowly  moved  forward  to  a  new  freedom.     But  while 
England  thus  rested  in  peace  a  terrible  blow  broke  the 
fortunes   of   her   King.     In    1120   his   son,  William  the 
"^Etheling,"  with  a  crowd  of  nobles  accompanied  Henry 
on  his  return  from  Normandy ;    but  the  "White  ship  in 
which  he  embarked  lingered  behind  the  rest  of  the  royal 
fleet  till  the  guards   of  the  King's  treasure  pressed  its 
departure.     It  had  hardly  cleared  the  harbour  when  the 
ship's  side  struck  on  a  rock,  and  in  an  instant  it  sank 
beneath  the  waves.     One  terrible  cry,  ringing  through  the 
silence  of  the  night,  was  heard  by  the  royal  fleet ;  but  it 
was  not  till  the  morning  that  the  fatal  news  reached  the 


The 

Angevin 
Marriage, 


li.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214  147 

King.    Stern  as  he  was,  Henry  fell  senseless  to  the  ground,   CHAP.  II. 
and  rose  never  to  smile  again.     He  had  no  other  son,  and       ^ 
the  circle  of  his  foreign  foes  closed  round  him  the  more    1ja2^n 
fiercely  that  William,  the  son  of  his  captive  brother  Robert,     IQBS- 
was  now  his  natural  heir.     Henry  hated  William  while  he      115A- 
loved  his  own  daughter  Maud,  who  had  been  married  to 
the  Emperor  Henry  the  Fifth,  but  who  had  been  restored 
by  his  death  to  her  father's  court.     The  succession  of  a 
woman  was  new  in  English  history  ;  it  was  strange  to  a 
ieudal  baronage.    But  when  all  hope  of  issue  from  a  second 
wife  whom  he  wedded  was  over  Henry  forced  priests  and 
nobles  to  swear  allegiance  to  Maud  as  their  future  mistress, 
and  affianced  her  to   Geoffry  the  Handsome,  the  son  of 
the  one  foe  whom  he  dreaded,  Count  Fulk  of  Aujou. 

The  marriage  of  Matilda  was  but  a  step  in  the  wonder-  Anjou. 
ful  history  by  which  the  Descendants  of  a  Breton  woodman 
became  masters  not  of  Anjou  only,  but  of  Touraine,  Maine, 
and  Poitou,  of  Gascony  and  Auvergne,  of  Acquitaine  and 
Xormandy,  and  sovereigns  at  last  of  the  great  realm  which 
Xormandy  had  wort  The  legend  of  the  father  of  their 
races  carries  us  back  to  the  times  of  our  own  vElfred,  when 
the  Danes  were  ravaging  along  Loire  as  they  ravaged  along 
Thames.  In  the  heart  of  the  Breton  border,  in  the  de- 
bateable  land  between  France  and  Britanny, 'dwelt  Tortulf 
the  Forester,  half-brigand,  half-hunter  as  the  gloomy  days 
went,  living  in  free  outlaw-fashion  in  the  woods  about 
Rennes.  Tortulf  had  learned  in  his  rough  forest  school 
"  how  to  strike  the  foe,  to  sleep  on  the  bare  ground,  to  bear 
hunger  and  toil,  summer's  heat  and  winter's  frost,  how  to 
fear  nothing  save  ill-fame."  Following  King  Charles  the 
Bald  in  his  struggle  with  the  Danes,  the  woodman  won 
broad  lands  along  Loire,  and  his  son  Ingelger,  who  had 
swept  the  Northmen  from  Touraine  and  the  land  to  the 
west,  which  they  had  burned  and  wasted  into  a  vast  solitude, 
became  the  first  Count  of  Anjou.  But  the  tale  of  Tortulf 
and  Ingelger  is  a  mere  creation  of  some  twelfth  century 
jongleur.  The  earliest  Count  whom  history  recognizes  is 


148 


HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

Norman 
Kings. 

1085- 

1154 


Fulk  the 
Black. 


Fulk  the  Red.  Fulk  attached  himself  to  the  Dukes  of 
France  who  were  now  drawing  nearer  to  the  throne,  and  in 
888  received  from  them  in  guerdon  the  western  portion  of 
Anjou  which  lay  across  the  Mayenne.  The  story  of  his 
son  is  a  story  of  peace,  breaking  like  a  quiet  idyll  the  war- 
storms  of  his  house.  Alone  of  his  race  Fulk  the  Good 
waged  no  wars:  his  delight  was  to  sit  in  the  choir  of 
Tours  and  to  be  called  "  Canon."  One  Martinmas  eve 
Fulk  was  singing  there  in  clerkly  guise  when  the  French 
King,  Lewis  d'Outrerner,  entered  the  church.  ''  He  sings 
like  a  priest,"  laughed  the  King  as  his  nobley  pointed 
mockingly  to  the  figure  of  the  Count-Canon.  But  Fulk 
was  ready  with  his  reply.  "  Knowv  my  lord,"  wrote  the 
Count  of  Anjou,  "  that  a  King  unlearned  is  a  crowned 
ass."  Fulk  was  in  fact  no  priest,  but  a  busy  ruler,  govern- 
ing, enforcing  peace,  and  carrying  justice  to  every  corner 
of  the  wasted  land.  To  him  alone  of  his  race  men  gave 
the  title  of  "  the  Good." 

Hampered  by  revolt,  himself  in  character  little  more 
than  a  bold,  dashing  soldier,  Fulk's  sou,  Geoffry  Grey- 
gown,  sank  almost  into  a  vassal  of  his  powerful  neighbours, 
the  Counts  of  Blois  and  Champagne.  But  this  vassalage 
was  roughly  shaken  off  by  his  successor.  Fulk  Nerra, 
Fulk  the  Black,  is  the  greatest  of  the  Angevins,  the  first 
in  whom  we  can  trace  that  marked  type  of  character 
which  their  house  was  to  preserve  through  two  hundred 
years.  He  was  without  natural  affection.  In  his  youth 
he  burnt  a  wife  at  the  stake,  and  legend  told  how  he  led 
her  to  her  doom  decked  out  in  his  gayest  attire.  In  his 
old  age  he  waged  his  bitterest  war  against  his  son,  and 
exacted  from  him  when  vanquished  a  humiliation  which 
men  reserved  for  the  deadliest  of  their  foes.  "You  are 
conquered,  you  are  conquered ! "  shouted  the  old  man  in 
fierce  exultation,  as  Geoffry,  bridled  and  saddled  like  a 
beast  of  burden,  crawled  for  pardon  to  his  father's  feet. 
In  Fulk  first  appeared  that  low  type  of  superstition  which 
startled  even  superstitious  ages  in  the  early  Plautagenets. 


II.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  149 

Eobber  as  he  was  of  Church  lands,  and  contemptuous  of    CHAP.  II 
ecclesiastical  censures,  the  fear  of  the  end  of  the  world        The 
drove  Fulk  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre.     Barefoot  and  with  the     ^n^!1 
strokes  of  the  scourge  falling  heavily  on  his  shoulders,  the      1055- 
Count  had  himself  dragged  by  a  halter  through  the  streets      1L84' 
of  Jerusalem,  and  courted  the  doom  of  martyrdom  by  his 
wild  outcries  of  penitence.     He  rewarded  the  fidelity  of 
Herbert  of  Le  Mans,  whose  aid  saved  him  from  utter  ruin, 
by  entrapping  him  into  captivity  and  robbing  him  of  his 
lands.     He  secured  the  terrified  friendship  of  the  French 
King  by  despatching  twelve  assassins  to  cut  down  before 
his  eyes  the  minister  who  had  troubled  it.     Familiar  as  the 
age  was  with  treason  and  rapine  and  blood,  it  recoiled  from 
the  cool  cynicism  of  his  crimes,  and  believed  the  wrath  of 
Heaven  to  have  been  revealed  against  the  union  of  the 
worst  forms  of  evil  in  Fulk  the  Black.     But  neither  the 
wrath  of  Heaven  nor  the  curses  of  men  broke  with  a  single 
mishap  the  fifty  years  of  his  success. 

At  his  accession  in  987  Anjou  was  the  least  important 
of  the  greater  provinces  of  France.  At  his  death  in  1040 
it  stood,  if  not  in  extent,  at  least  in  real  power,  first  among 
them  all.  Cool-headed,  clear-sighted,  quick  to  resolve, 
quicker  to  strike,  Fulk's  career  was  one  long  series  of 
victories  over  all  his  rivals.  He  was  a  consummate 
general,  and  he  had  the  gift  of  personal  bravery,  which 
was  denied  to  some  of  his  greatest  descendants.  There 
was  a  moment  in  the  first  of  his  battles  when  the  day 
seemed  lost  for  Anjou ;  a  feigned  retreat  of  the  Bretons 
drew  the  Angevin  horsemen  into  a  line  of  hidden  pitfalls, 
and  the  Count  himself  was  flung  heavily  to  the  ground. 
Dragged  from  the  medley  of  men  and  horses,  he  swept 
down  almost  singly  on  the  foe  "  as  a  storm-wind  "  (so  rang 
the  pa3an  of  the  Angevins)  "  sweeps  down  on  the  thick 
corn-rows,"  and  the  field  was  won.  But  to  these  qualities 
of  the  warrior  he  added  a  power  of  political  organization, 
a  capacity  for  far-reaching  combinations,  a  faculty  of 
statesmanship,  which  became  the  heritage  of  his  race,  and 

VOL.  L— 11 


HIBTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


CHAP.  II.  lifted  them  as  high  above  the  intellectual  level  of  the 
^  rulers  of  their  time  as  their  shameless  wickedness  de- 

^Kiif's11    graded  them  below  the  level  of  man.     His  overthrow  of 

loss-     Britanny  on  the  field  of  Conquereux  was  followed  by  the 

USA.      oradual  absorption  of  Southern  Touraine  ;    a    victory   at 

Pontlevoi  crushed  the  rival  house  of  Blois;    the  seizure 

of  Saumur   completed  his  conquests  in  the  south,  while 

Northern    Touraine  was  won  bit  by  bit  till  only  Tours 

resisted  the   Angevin.      The    treacherous   seizure   of  its 

Count,  Herbert  Wakedog,  left  Maine  at  his  mercy. 

Death  of       His   work   of    conquest    was   completed   by    his    son. 

Henry.  Qeoffry  Martel  wrested  Tours  from  the  Count  of  Blois, 
and  by  the  seizure  of  Le  Mans  brought  his  border  to  the 
Norman  frontier.  Here  however  his  advance  was  checked 
by  the  genius  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  with  his 
death  the  greatness  of  Anjou  came  for  a  while  to  an  end. 
Stripped  of  Maine  by  the  Normans  and  broken  by  dis- 
sensions within,  the  weak  and  profligate  rule  of  Fulk 
Eechin  left  Anjou  powerless.  But  in  1109  it  woke  to 
fresh  energy  with  the  accession  of  his  son,  Fulk  of  Jerusa- 
lem. Now  urging  the  turbulent  Norman  nobles  to  revolt, 
now  supporting  Eobert's  son,  William,  in  his  strife  with 
his  uncle,  offering  himself  throughout  as  the  loyal  sup- 
porter of  the  French  kingdom  which  was  now  hemmed  in 
on  almost  every  side  by  the  forces  of  the  English  king  and 
of  his  allies  the  Counts  of  Blois  and  Champagne,  Fulk 
was  the  one  enemy  whom  Henry  the  First  really  feared. 
It  was  to  disarm  his  restless  hostility  that  the  King  gave 
the  hand  of  Matilda  to  Geoffry  the  Handsome.  But  the 
hatred  between  Norman  and  Angevin  had  been  too  bitter 
to  make  such  a  marriage  popular,  and  the  secrecy  with 
which  it  was  brought  about  was  held  by  the  barons  to 
free  them  from  the  oath  they  had  previously  sworn. 
As  no  baron  if  he  was  sonless  could  give  a  husband 
to  his  daughter  save  with  his  lord's  consent,  the  nobles 
held  by  a  strained  analogy  that  their  own  assent  was 
needful  to  the  marriage  of  Maud.  Henry  found  a 


II.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  151 

more   pressing    danger    in    the   greed    of  her    husband  CHAP.  II. 
Geoffry,  whose  habit .  of   wearing  the  common  broom  of       ^ 
Anjou,  the  planta  genista,  in  his   helmet  gave   him  the    ^[ngasn 
title  of  Plantagenet.     His  claims  ended  at  last  in  intrigues      ioas- 
with  the  Norman  nobles,  and  Henry  hurried  to  the  border      1154" 
to  meet  an  Angevin  invasion ;    but  the  plot  broke  down 
at  his  presence,  the  Angevins  retired,  and  at  the  close  of 
1135  the  old  King  withdrew  to  the  Forest  of  Lyons  to  die. 

"  God  give  him,"  wrote  the  Archbishop  of  Eouen  from  Stephen. 
Henry's  death-bed,  "  the  peace  he  loved."  With  him 
indeed  closed  the  long  peace  of  the  Norman  rule.  An 
outburst  of  anarchy  followed  on  the  news  of  his  departure, 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  turmoil  Earl  Stephen,  his  nephew, 
appeared  at  the  gates  of  London.  Stephen  was  a  son  of 
the  Conqueror's  daughter,  Adela,  who  had  married  a  Count 
of  Blois ;  he  had  been  brought  up  at  the  English  court,  had 
been  made  Count  of  Mortain  by  Henry,  had  become  Count 
of  Boulogne  by  his  marriage,  and  as  head  of  the  Norman 
baronage  had  been  the  first  to  pledge  himself  to  support 
Matilda's  succession.  But  his  own  claim  as  nearest  male 
heir  of  the  Conqueror's  blood  (for  his  cousin,  the  son  of 
Robert,  had  fallen  some  years  before  in  Flanders)  was  sup- 
ported by  his  personal  popularity ;  mere  swordgman  as  he 
was,  his  good-humour,  his  generosity,  his  very  prodigality 
made  Stephen  a  favourite  with  all.  No  noble  however 
had  as  yet  ventured  to  join  him  nor  had  any  town  opened 
its  gates  when  London  poured  out  to  meet  him  with  up- 
roarious welcome.  Neither  baron  nor  prelate  was  present 
to  constitute  a  National  Council,  but  the  great  city  did 
not  hesitate  to  take  their  place.  The  voice  of  her  citizens 
had  long  been  accepted  as  representative  of  the  popular 
assent  in  the  election  of  a  king ;  but  it  marks  the  progress 
of  English  independence  under  Henry  that  London  now 
claimed  of  itself  the  right  of  election.  Undismayed  by 
the  absence  of  the  hereditary  counsellors  of  the  crown 
its  "  Aldermen  and  wise  folk  gathered  together  the  folk- 
moot,  and  these  providing  at  their  own  will  for  the  good 


152 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II.  of  the  realm  unanimously  resolved  to  choose  a  king." 
^  The  solemn  deliberation  ended  in  the  choice  of  Stephen, 
^Kings?  tne  citizens  .swore  to  defend  the  King  with  money  and 
loss-  blood,  Stephen  swore  to  apply  his  whole  strength  to  the 
1154-  pacification  and  good  government  of  the  realm.  It  was  in 
fact  the  new  union  of  conquered  and  conquerors  into  a 
single  England  that  did  Stephen's  work.  The  succession 
of  Maud  meant  the  rule  of  Geoffry  of  Anjou,  and  to 
Norman  as  to  Englishman  the  rule  of  the  Angevin  was  a 
foreign  rule.  The  welcome  Stephen  won  at  London  and 
.  Winchester,  his  seizure  of  the  royal  treasure,  the  adhesion 
of  the  Justiciar  Bishop  Eoger  to  his  cause,  the  reluctant 
consent  of  the  Archbishop,  the  hopelessness  of  aid  from 
Anjou  where  Geoffry  was  at  this  moment  pressed  by 
revolt,  the  need  above  all  of  some  king  to  meet  the  out- 
break of  anarchy  which  followed  Henry's  death,  secured 
Stephen  the  voice  of  the  baronage.  He  was  crowned  at 
Christmas-tide;  and  soon  joined  by  Robert  Earl  of  Gloucester, 
a  bastard  son  of  Henry  and  the  chief  of  his  nobles ;  while 
the  issue  of  a  charter  from  Oxford  in  1136,  a  charter  which 
renewed  the  dead  King's  pledge  of  good  government,  pro- 
mised another  Henry  to  the  realm.  The  charter  surrendered 
all  forests  made  in  the  last  reign  as  a  sop  to  the  nobles,  it 
conciliated  the  Church  by  granting  freedom  of  election  and 
renouncing  all  right  to  the  profits  of  vacant  churches,  it 
won  the  people  by  a  pledge  to  abolish  the  tax  of  Danegeld. 
The  king's  first  two  years  were  years  of  success 
arid  prosperity.  Two  risings  of  barons  in  the  east  and 
west  were  easily  put  down,  and  in  1137  Stephen  passed 
into  Normandy  and  secured  the  Duchy  against  an  attack 
from  Anjou.  But.  already  the  elements  of  trouble  were 
gathering  round  him.  Stephen  was  a  mere  soldier,  with 
few  kingly  qualities  save  that  of  a  soldier's  bravery; 
and  the  realm  soon  began  to  slip  from  his  grasp.  He 
turned  against  himself  the  jealous  dread  of  foreigners  to 
which  he  owed  his  accession  by  surrounding  himself  with 
hired  knights  from  Flanders  ;  he  drained  the  treasury  by 


Battle 

of  the 

Standard. 


II.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


153 


creating  new  earls  endowed  with  pensions  from  it,  and 
recruited  his  means  by  base  coinage.  His  consciousness 
of  the  gathering  storm  only  drove  Stephen  to  bind  his 
friends  to  him  by  suffering  them  'to  fortify  castles  and  to 
renew  the  feudal  tyranny  which  Henry  had  struck  down. 
But  the  long  reign  of  the  dead  king  had  left  the  Crown 
so  strong  that  even  yet  Stephen  could  hold  his  own.  A 
plot  which  Robert  of  Gloucester  had  been  weaving  from 
the  outset  of  his  reign  came  indeed  to  a  head  in  1138,  and 
the  Earl's  revolt  stripped  Stephen  of  Caen  and  half  Nor- 
mandy. But  when  his  partizans  in  England  rose  in  the 
south  and  the  west  and  the  King  of  Scots,  whose  friend- 
ship Stephen  had  bought  in  the  opening  of  his  reign  by  the 
cession  of  Carlisle,  poured  over  the  northern  border,  the 
nation  stood  firmly  by  the  King.  Stephen  himself  marched 
on  the  western  rebels  and  soon  left  them  few  strongholds 
save  Bristol.  His  people  fought  for  him  in  the  north. 
The  pillage  and  cruelties  of  the  wild  tribes  of  Galloway  and 
the  Highlands  roused  the  spirit  of  the  Yorkshiremen. 
Baron  and  freeman  gathered  at  York  round  Archbishop 
Thurstan  and  marched  to  the  field  of  Northallerton  to 
await  the  foe.  The  sacred  banners  of  St.  Cu.th.bert  of 
Durham,  St.  Peter  of  York,  St.  John  of  Beverley,  and  St. 
Wilfred  of  Papon  hung  from  a  pole  fixed  in  a  four-wheeled 
car  which  stood  in  the  centre  of  the .  host.  The  first 
onset  of  David's  host  was  a  terrible  one.  "  I  who  wear 
no  armour."  shouted  the  chief  of  the  Galwegians,  "  will  go 
as  far  this  day  as  any  one  with  breastplate  of  mail ; "  his 
men  charged  with  wilds  shout  of  "  Albin,  Albin,"  and  were 
followed  by  the  Norman  knighthood  of  the  Lowlands. 
But  their  repulse  was  complete  ;  the  fierce  hordes  dashed 
in  vain  against  the  close  English  ranks  around  the  Standard, 
and  the  whole  army  fled  in  confusion  to  Carlisle. 

Weak  indeed  as  Stephen  was,  the  administrative  organi- 
zation of  Henry  still  did  its  work.  Eoger  remained  justiciar, 
his  son  was  chancellor,  his  nephew  Nigel,  the  Bishop  of  Ely, 
was  treasurer.  Finance  and  justice  were  thus  concentrated 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

Norman 
Kings. 

1085- 
1154. 


Seizure 

of  the 

Bishops. 


154 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II.  in  the  hands  of  a  single  family  which  preserved  amidst 
^  the  deepening  misrule  something  of  the  old  order  and  rule, 

Nop^n  an(j  wnich  stood  at  the  head  of  the  '•'  new  men,"  whom  Henry 
loss-  had  raise(l  into  importance  and  made  the  instruments  of 
1154.  hjg  wj]j  These  new  men  were  still  weak  by  the  side  of 
the  older  nobles ;  and  conscious  of  the  jealousy  and  ill- 
will  with  which  they  were  regarded  they  followed  in  self- 
defence  the  example  which  the  barons  were  setting  in 
building  and  fortiiying  castles  on  their  domains.  Roger 
and  his  house,  the  objects  from  their  official  position  of  a 
deeper  grudge  than  any,  were  carried  away  by  the  panic. 
The  justiciar  and  his  son  fortified  their  castles,  and  it  was 
only  with  a  strong  force  at  their  back  that  the  prelates 
appeared  at  court.  Their  attitude  was  one  to  rouse 
Stephen's  jealousy,  and  the  news  of  Matilda's  purpose  of 
invasion  lent  strength  to  the  doubts  which  the  nobles  cast 
on  their  fidelity.  All  the  weak  violence  of  the  King's 
temper  suddenly  broke  out.  He  seized  Roger  the  Chan- 
cellor and  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  when  they  appeared  at 
Oxford  in  June,  1139,  and  forced  them  to  surrender  their 
strongholds.  Shame  broke  the  justiciar's  heart ;  he  died 
at  the  close  of  the  year,  and  his  nephew  Nigel  of  Ely  was 
driven  from  the  realm.  But  the  fall  of  this  house  shat- 
tered the  whole  system  of  government.  The  King's  court 
and  the  Exchequer  ceased  to  work  at  a  moment  when  the 
landing  of  Earl  Robert  and  the  Empress  Matilda  set 
Stephen  face  to  face  with  a  danger  greater  than  he  had 
yet  encountered,  while  the  clergy  alienated  by  the  arrest 
of  the  Bishops  and  the  disregard  of  their  protests,  stood 
angrily  aloof. 

Civil  War.  The  three  bases  of  Henry's  system  of  government,  the 
subjection  of  the  baronage  to  the  law,  the  good-will  of 
the  Church,  and  the  organization  of  justice  and  finance, 
were  now  utterly  ruined ;  and  for  the  seventeen  years 
which  passed  from  this  hour  to  the  Treaty  of  Walling- 
ford  England  was  given  up  to  the  miseries  of  civil 
war.  The  country  was  divided  between  the  adherents 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  155 

of  the  two  rivals,  the  "West  supporting  Matilda,  London  CHAP.  II: 
and  the  East  Stephen.  A  defeat  at  Lincoln  in  1141  ^ 
left  the  latter  a  captive  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  ^ng^1 
while  Matilda  was  received  throughout  the  land  as  its  icss- 
"  Lady."  But  the  disdain  with  which  she  repulsed  the  1}54' 
claim  of  London  to  the  enjoyment  of  its  older  privileges 
called  its  burghers  to  arms  ;  her  resolve  to  hold  Stephen 
a  prisoner  roused  his  party  again  to  life,  and  she  was  driven 
to  Oxford  to  be  besieged  there  in  1142  by  Stephen  himself, 
who  had  obtained  his  release  in  exchange  for  Earl  Robert 
after  the  capture  of  the  Earl  in  a  battle  at  Devizes.  She 
escaped  from  the  castle,  but  with  the  death  of  Robert  her 
struggle  became  a  hopeless  one,  and  in  1146  she  withdrew 
to  Normandy.  The  war  was  now  a  mere  chaos  of  pillage  and 
bloodshed.  The  royal  power  came  to  an  end.  The  royal 
courts  were  suspended,  for  not  a  baron  or  bishop  would  come 
at  the  King's  call.  The  bishops  met  in  council  to  protest, 
but  their  protests  and  excommunications  fell  on  deafened 
ears.  For  the  first  and  last  time  in  her  history  England  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  baronage,  and  their  outrages  showed 
from  what  horrors  the  stern  rule  of  the  Norman  kings  had 
saved  her.  Castles  sprang  up  everywhere.  "  They  filled 
the  land  with  castles,"  says  the  terrible  annalist  of  the 
time.  "  They  greatly  oppressed  the  wretched  people  by 
making  them  work  at  these  castles,  and  when  they  were 
finished  they  filled  them  with  devils  and  armed  men."  In 
each  of  these  robber-holds  a  petty  tyrant  ruled  like  a 
king.  The  strife  for  the  Crown  had  broken  into  a  medley 
of  feuds  between  baron  and  baron,  for  none  could  brook  an 
equal  or  a  superior  in  his  fellow.  "  They  fought  among 
themselves  with  deadly  hatred,  they  spoiled  the  fairest 
lands  with  fire  and  rapine;  in  what  had  been  the  mostfertik 
of  counties  they  destroyed  almost  all  the  provision  of  bread." 
For  fight  as  they  might  with  one  another,  all  were  at  one 
in  the  plunder  of  the  land.  Towns  were  put  to  ransom. 
Villages  were  sacked  and  burned.  All  who  were  deemed 
to  have  goods,  whether  men  or  women,  were  carried  off  and 


156 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1085- 
1154. 


CHAP.  II.  flung  into  dungeons  and  tortured  till  they  yielded  up  their 
^  wealth.  No  ghastlier  picture  of  a  nation's  misery  has  ever 

NKingsn  been  Pamted  than  that  which  closes  the  English  Chronicle 
whose  last  accents  falter  out  amidst  the  horrors  of  the  time. 
"  They  hanged  up  men  by  their  feet  and  smoked  them  with 
foul  smoke.  Some  were  hanged  up  by  their  thumbs,  others 
by  the  head,  and  burning  things  were  hung  on  to  their 
feet.  They  put  knotted  strings  about  men's  heads,  and 
writhed  them  till  they  went  to  the  brain.  They  put  men 
into  prisons  where  adders  and  snakes  and  toads  were  crawl- 
ing, and  so  they  tormented  them.  Some  they  put  into  a 
chest  short  and  narrow  and  not  deep  and  that  had  sharp 
stones  within,  and  forced  men  therein  so  that  they  broke 
all  their  limbs.  In  many  of  the  castles  were  hateful  and 
grim  things  called  rachenteges,  which  two  or  three  men  had 
enough  to  do  to  carry.  It  was  thus  made  :  it  was  fastened 
to  a  beam  and  had  a  sharp  iron  to  go  about  a  man's  neck  and 
throat,  so  that  he  might  noways  sit,  or  lie,  or  sleep,  but  he 
bore  all  the  iron.  Many  thousands  they  starved  with  hunger." 
It  was  only  after  years  of  this  feudal  anarchy  that  Eng- 
land was  rescued  from  it  by  the  efforts  of  the  Church. 
The  political  influence  of  the  Church  had  been  greatly 
lessened  by  the  Conquest :  for  pious,  learned,  and  energetic 
as  the  bulk  of  the  Conqueror's  bishops  were,  they  were  not 
Englishmen.  Till  the  reign  of  Henry  the  First  no  English- 
man occupied  an  English  see.  This  severance  of  the  higher 
clergy  from  the  lower  priesthood  and  from  the  people  went 
far  to  paralyze  the  constitutional  influence  of  the  Church. 
Anselm  stood  alone  against  Eufus,  and  when  Anselm 
was  gone  no  voice  of  ecclesiastical  freedom  broke  the 
silence  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the  First.  But  at  the 
close  of  Henry's  reign  and  throughout  the  reign  of  Stephen 
England  was  stirred  by  the  first  of  those  great  religious 
movements  which  it'  was  to  experience  afterwards  in  the 
preaching  of  the  Friars,  the  Lollardism  of  Wyclif,  the 
Reformation,  the  Puritan  enthusiasm,  and  the  mission 
work  of  the  Wesleys.  Everywhere  in  town  and  country 


Religious 
Revival. 


li.l     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


157 


men  banded  themselves  together  for  prayer :  hermits 
flocked  to  the  woods :  noble  and  churl  welcomed  the 
austere  Cistercians,  a  reformed  offshoot  of  the  Benedic- 
tine order,  as  they  spread  over  the  moors  and  forests  of 
the  North.  A  new  spirit  of  devotion  woke  the  slumbers 
of  the  religious  houses,  and  penetrated  alike  to  the  home 
'of  the  noble  and  the  trader.  London  took  its  full  share 
in  the  revival.  The  city  was  proud  of  its  religion,  its 
thirteen  conventual  and  more  than  a  hundred  parochial 
churches.  The  new  impulse  changed  its  very  aspect.  In 
the  midst  of  the  city  Bishop  Kichard  busied  himself  with 
the  vast  cathedral  church  of  St.  Paul  which  Bishop 
Maurice  had  begun  ;  barges  came  up  the  river  with  stone 
from  Caen  for  the  great  arches  that  moved  the  popular 
wonder,  while  street  and  lane  were  being  levelled  to  make 
room  for  its  famous  churchyard.  Ealiere,  a  minstrel  at 
Henry's  court,  raised  the  Priory  of  Saint  Bartholomew 
beside  Srnithfield.  Alfune  built  St.  Giles's  at  Cripplegate. 
The  old  English  Cnichtenagild  surrendered  their  soke  of 
Aldgate  as  a  site  for  the  new  priory  of  the  Holy  Trinity. 
The  tale  of  this  house  paints  admirably  the  temper  of  the 
citizens  at  the  time.  Its  founder,  Prior  Norman,  built 
church  and  cloister  and  bought  books  and  vestments  in  so 
liberal  a  fashion  that  no  money  remained  to  buy  bread. 
The  canons  were  at  their  last  gasp  when  the  city-folk, 
looking  into  the  refectory  as  they  passed  round  the  cloister 
in  their  usual  Sunday  procession,  saw  the  tables  laid  but 
not  a  single  loaf  on  them.  "  Here  is  a  fine  set  out,"  said 
the  citizens  ;  "  but  where  is  the  bread  to  come  from  ?  "  The 
women  who  were  present  vowed  each  to  bring  a  loaf  every 
Sunday,  and  there  was  soon  bread  enough  and  to  spare  for 
the  priory  and  its  priests. 

We  see  the  strength  of  the  new  movement  in  the  new 
class  of  ecclesiastics  whom  it  forced  on  to  the  stage.  Men 
like  Archbishop  Theobald  drew  whatever  influence  they 
wielded  from  a  belief  in  their  holiness  of  life  and  unselfish- 
ness of  aim.  The  paralysis  of  the  Church  ceased  as  the 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

Norman 
Kings. 

1O85- 
1154. 


Thomas 

of 
London 


158  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.    new  impulse  bound  prelacy  and  people  together,  and  at  the 
^       moment  we  have  reached   its   power    was   found    strong 

Norman     enough  to  wrest  England  out  of  the  chaos  of  feudal  mis- 
Kings.  ° 

loss-  ru^e-  ^n  ^ie  earty  Par^  °f  Stephen's  reign  his  brother 
H54-.  Henry,  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  who  had  been  appointed 
in  1139  Papal  Legate  for  the  realm,  had  striven  to  supply 
the  absence  of  any  royal  or  national  authority  by  convening 
.  synods  of  bishops,  and  by  asserting  the  moral  right  of  the 
Church  to  declare  sovereigns  unworthy  of  the  throne.  The 
compact  between  king  and  people  which  became  a  part  of 
constitutional  law  in  the  Charter  of  Henry  had  gathered 
new  force  in  the  Charter  of  Stephen,  but  its  legitimate 
consequence  in  the  responsibility  of  the  crown  for  the 
execution  of  the  compact  was  first  drawn  out  by  these 
ecclesiastical  councils.  From  their  alternate  depositions  of 
Stephen  and  Matilda  flowed  the  after  depositions  of  Edward 
and  Richard,  and  the  solemn  act  by  which  the  succession 
was  changed  in  the  case  of  James.  Extravagant  and  un- 
authorized as  their  expression  of  it  may  appear,  they 
expressed  the  right  of  a  nation  to  good  government. 
Henry  of  Winchester  however,  "  half  monk,  half  soldier," 
as  he  was  called,  possessed  too  little  religious  influence  to 
wield  a  really  spiritual  power,  and  it  was  only  at  the  close 
of  Stephen's  reign  that  the  nation  really  found  a  moral 
leader  in  Theobald,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Theo- 
bald's ablest  agent  and  adviser  was  Thomas,  the  son  of 
Gilbert  Beket,  a  leading  citizen  and,  it  is  said,  Portreeve  of 
London,  the  site  of  whose  house  is  still  marked  by  the 
Mercers'  chapel  in  Cheapside.  His  mother  Eohese  was  a 
type  of  the  devout  woman  of  her  day ;  she  weighed  her 
boy  every  year  on  his  birthday  against  money,  clothes,  and 
provisions  which  she  gave  to  the  poor.  Thomas  grew  up 
amidst  the  Norman  barons  and  clerks  who  frequented  his 
father's  house  with  a  genial  freedom  of  character  tempered 
by  the  Norman  refinement ;  he  passed  from  the  school  of 
Merton  to  the  University  of  Paris,  and  returned  to  fling 
himself  into  the  life  of  the  young  nobles  of  the  time.  Tall, 


II.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


159 


handsome,  bright- eyed,  ready  of  wit  and  speech,  his  firm- 
ness of  temper  showed  itself  in  his  very  sports  ;  to  rescue 
his  hawk  which  had  fallen  into  the  water  he  once  plunged 
into  a  millrace  and  was  all  but  crushed  by  the  wheel. 
The  loss  of  his  father's  wealth  drove  him  to  the  court  of 
Archbishop  Theobald,  and  he  soon  became  the  Primate's 
confidant  in  his  plans  for  the  rescue  of  England. 

The  natural  influence  which  the  Primate  would  have 
exerted  was  long  held  in  suspense  by  the  superior  position 
of  Bishop  Henry  of  Winchester  as  Papal  Legate  ;  but  this 
office  ceased  with  the  Pope  who  granted  it,  and  when  in 
1150  it  was  transferred  to  the  Archbishop  himself  Theobald 
soon  made  his  weight  felt.  The  long  disorder  of  the  realm 
was  producing  its  natural  reaction  in  exhaustion  and  disgust, 
as  well  as  in  a  general  craving  for  return  to  the  line  of  here- 
ditary succession  whose  breaking  seemed  the  cause  of  the 
nation's  woes.  But  the  growth  of  their  son  Henry  to  man- 
hoodset  naturally  aside  the  pretensions  both  of  Count  Geoffry 
and  Matilda.  Young  as  he  was  Henry  already  showed  the 
cool  long-sighted  temper  which  was  to  be  his  characteristic 
on  the  throne.  Foiled  in  an, early  attempt  to  grasp  the 
crown,  he  looked  quietly  on  at  the  disorder  which  was  doing 
his  work  till  the  death  of  his  father  at  the  close  of  1151 
left  him  master  of  Normandy  and  Anjou.  In  "the  spring 
of  the  following  year  his  marriage  with  its  duchess,  Eleanor 
of  Poitou,  added  Acquitaine  to  his  dominions.  Stephen  saw 
the  gathering  storm,  and  strove  to  meet  it.  He  called  on  the 
bishops  and  baronage  to  secure  the  succession  of  his  son 
Eustace  by  consenting  to  his 'association  with  him  in  the 
kingdom.  But  the  moment  was  now  come  for  Theobald  to 
play  his  part.  He  was  already  negotiating  through  Thomas 
of  London  with  Henry  and  the  Pope ;  he  met  Stephen's 
plans  by  a  refusal  to  swear  fealty  to  his  son,  and  the 
bishops,  in  spite  of  Stephen's  threats,  went  with  their  head. 
The  blow  was  soon  followed  by  a  harder  one.  Thomas,  as 
Theobald's  agent,  invited  Henry  to  appear  in  England,  and 
though  the  Duke  disappointed  his  supporters'  hopes  by  the 


CHAP.  II. 

The 

Norrnar- 
Kings. 

1085- 
1154. 


Treaty  of 

Walling- 

ford. 


160 


HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  [BOOK  n. 


The 

Norman 
Kings. 

1O85- 
1154. 


CHAP.  II.  scanty  number  of  men  he  brought  with  him  in  1153,  his 
weakness  proved  in  the  end  a  source  of  strength.  It  was 
not  to  foreigners,  men  said,  that  Henry  owed  his  success 
but  to  the  arms  of  Englishmen.  An  English  army  gathered 
round  him,  and  as  the  hosts  of  Stephen  and  the  Duke  drew 
together  a  battle  seemed  near  which  would  decide  the  fate 
of  the  realm.  But  Theobald  who  was  now  firmly  sup- 
ported, by  the  greater  barons  again  interfered  and  forced 
the  rivals  to  an  agreement.  To  the  excited  partizans  of 
the  house  of  Anjou  it  seemed  as  if  the  nobles  were  simply 
playing  their  own  game  in  the  proposed  settlement  and 
striving  to  preserve  their  power  by  a  balance  of  masters. 
The  suspicion  was  probably  groundless,  but  all  fear 
vanished  with  the  death  of  Eustace,  who  rode  off  from 
his  father's  camp,  maddened  with  the  ruin  of  his  hopes, 
to  die  in  August,  smitten,  as  men  believed,  by  the  hand 
of  God  for  his  plunder  of  abbeys.  The  ground  was 
now  clear,  and  in  November  the  Treaty  of  Wullingford 
abolished  the  evils  of  the  long  anarchy.  The  castles  were 
to  be  razed,  the  crown  lands  resumed,  the  foreign  mer- 
cenaries banished  from  the  country,  and  sheriffs  appointed 
to  restore  order.  Stephen  was  recognized  as  King,  and  in 
turn  recognized  Henry  as  his  heir.  The  Duke  received  at 
Oxford  the  fealty  of  the  barons,  and  passed  into  Normandy 
in  the  spring  of  1154.  The  work  of  reformation  had 
already  begun.  Stephen  resented  indeed  the  pressure  which 
Henry  put  on  him  to  enforce  the  destruction  of  the  castles 
built  during  the  anarchy ;  but  Stephen's  resistance  was  but 
the  pettish  outbreak  of  a  ruined  man.  He  was  in  fact  fast 
drawing  to  the  grave ;  and  on  his  death  in  October  1154 
Henry  returned  to  take  the  crown  without  a  blow. 


CHAPTER  III. 
HENRY  THE  SECOND. 

1154—1189. 

YOUNG  as  he  was,  and  he  had  reached  but  his  twenty-  Henry 
first  year  when  he  returned  to  England  as  its  King,  Henry 
mounted  the  throne  with  a  purpose  of  government  which 
his  reign  carried  steadily  out.  His  practical,  serviceable 
frame  suited  the  hardest  worker  of  his  time.  There  was 
something  in  his  build  and  look,  in  the  square  stout  form, 
the  fiery  face,  the  close-cropped  hair,  the  prominent  eyes,  the 
bull  neck,  the  coarse  strong  hands,  the  bowed  legs,  that 
marked  out  the  keen,  stirring,  coarse-fibred  man  of  business. 
"  He  never  sits  down,"  said  one  who  observed  him  closely; 
"  he  is  always  on  his  legs  from  morning  till  night."  Orderly 
in  business,  careless  of  appearance,  sparing  in  -diet,  never 
resting  or  giving  his  servants  rest,  chatty,  inquisitive, 
endowed  with  a  singular  charm  of  address  and  strength 
of  memory,  obstinate  in  love  or  hatred,  a  fair  scholar,  a 
great  hunter,  his  general  air  that  of  a  rough,  passionate, 
busy  man,  Henry's  personal  character  told  directly  on  the 
character  of  his  reign.  His  accession  marks  the  period  of 
amalgamation  when  neighbourhood  and  traffic  and  inter- 
marriage drew  Englishmen  and  Normans  into  a  single 
people.  A  national  feeling  was  thus  springing  up  before 
which  the  barriers  of  the  older  feudalism  were  to  be  swept 
away.  Henry  had  even  less  reverence  for  the  feudal  past 
than  the  men  of  .his  day :  he  was  indeed  utterly  without 
the  imagination  and  reverence  which  enable  men  to 


162  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  sympathize  with  any  past  at  all.  He  had  a  practical  man's 
Henry" the  impatience  of  the  obstacles  thrown  in  the  way  of  his 
second.  reforms  by  the  older  constitution  of  the  realm,  nor  could 
he.  understand  other  men's  reluctance  to  purchase  un- 
doubted improvements  by  the  sacrifice  of  customs  and 
traditions  of  bygone  days.  Without  any  theoretical  hos- 
tility to  the  co-ordinate  powers  of  the  state,  it  seemed  to 
him  a  perfectly  reasonable  and  natural  course  to  trample 
either  baronage  or  Church  under  foot  to  gain  his  end  of 
good  government.  He  saw  clearly  that  the  remedy  for 
such  anarchy  as  England  had  endured  under  Stephen  lay 
in  the  establishment  of  a  kingly  rule  unembarrassed  by 
any  privileges  of  order  or  class,  administered  by  royal 
servants,  and  in  whose  public  administration  the  nobles 
acted  simply  as  delegates  of  the  sovereign.  His  work  was 
to  lie  in  the  organization  of  judicial  and  administrative 
reforms  which  realized  this  idea.  But  of  the  currents  oi 
thought  and  feeling  which  were  tending  in  the  same 
direction  he  knew  nothing.  What  he  did  for  the  moral 
and  social  impulses  which  were  telling  on  men  about  him 
was  simply  to  let  them  alone.  Religion  grew  more  and 
more  identified  with  patriotism  under  the  eyes  of  a  King 
who  whispered,  and  scribbled,  and  looked  at  picture-books 
during  mass,  who  never  confessed,  and  cursed  God  in  wild 
frenzies  of  blasphemy.  Great  peoples  formed  themselves 
on  both  sides  of  the  sea  round  a  sovereign  who  bent  the 
whole  force  of  his  mind  to  hold  together  an  Empire  which 
the  growth  of  nationality  must  inevitably  destroy.  -  There 
is  throughout  a  tragic  grandeur  in  the  irony  of  Henry's 
position,  that  of  a  Sforza  of  the  fifteenth  century  set  in  the 
midst  of  the  twelfth,  building  up  by  patience  and  policy 
and  craft  a  dominion  alien  to  the  deepest  sympathies  of 
his  age  and  fated  to  be  swept  away  in  the  end  by  popular 
forces  to  whose  existence  his  very  cleverness  and  activity 
blinded  him.  But  whether  by  the  anti-national  temper  of 
his  general  system  or  by  the  administrative  reforms  of 
his  English  rule  his  policy  did  more  than  that  of  all 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


163 


CHAP.  III. 

Henry^the 
Second- 


his  predecessors  to  prepare  England  for   the  unity  and 
freedom  which  the  fall  of  his  house  was  to  reveal. 

He  had  been  placed  on  the  throne,  as  we  have  seen,  by 
the  Church.  His  first  work  was  to  repair  the  evils  which  lies'. 
England  had  endured  till  his  accession  by  the  restoration  ^e~gyea 
of  the  system  of  Henry  the  First  ;  and  it  was  with  the  aid  Scutage. 
and  counsel  of  Theobald  that  the  foreign  marauders  were 
driven  from  the  realm,  the  new  castles  demolished  in  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  the  baronage,  the  King's  Court  and 
Exchequer  restored.  Age  and  infirmity  however  warned 
the  Primate  to  retire  from  the  post  of  minister,  and  his 
power  fell  into  the  younger  and  more  vigorous  hands  of 
Thomas  Beket,  who  had  long  acted  as  his  confidential 
adviser  and  was  now  made  Chancellor.  Thomas  won  the 
personal  favour  of  the  King.  The  two  young  men  had,  in 
Theobald's  words,  '•'  but  one  heart  and  mind  ;  "  Henry 
jested  in  the  Chancellor's  hall,  or  tore  his  cloak  from  his 
shoulders  in  rough  horse-play  as  they  rode  through  the 
streets.  He  loaded  his  favourite  with  riches  and  honours, 
but  there  is  no  ground  for  thinking  that  Thomas  in  any 
degree  influenced  his  system  of  rule.  Henry's  policy 
seems  for  good  or  evil  to  have  been  throughout  his  own. 
His  work  of  reorganization  went  steadily  on  amidst  troubles 
at  home  and  abroad.  Welsh  outbreaks  forced  him  in  1157 
to  lead  an  army  over  the  border  ;  and  a  crushing  repulse 
showed  that  he  was  less  skilful  as  a  general  than  as  a 
statesman.  The  next  year  saw  him  drawn  across  the 
Channel,  where  he  was  already  master  of  a  third  of  the 
present  France.  Anjou  and  Touraine  he  had  inherited 
from  his  father,  Maine  and  Normandy  from  his  mother,  he 
governed  Britanny  through  his  brother,  while  the  seven 
provinces  of  the  South,  Poitou,  Saintonge,  Auvergne, 
Perigord,  the  Limousin,  the  Angoumois,  and  Guienne, 
belonged  to  his  wife.  As  Duchess  of  Aquitaine  Eleanor 
had  claims  on  Toulouse,  and  these  Henry  prepared  in 
1159  to  enforce  by  arms.  But  the  campaign  was  turned 
to  the  profit  of  his  reforms.  He  had  already  begun  the 


!64  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAI>.  ill.  work  of  bringing  the  baronage  within  the  grasp  of  the 

Henry" tlje  ^aw   ^y  sending  judges  from   the  Exchequer   year  after 

Second.     year  to  exact  the  royal  dues  and  administer  the  King's 

lisa       justice  even  in  castle  and  manor.     He  now  attacked  its 

military  influence.     Each  man  who  held  lands  of  a  certain 

.  value  was  hound  to  furnish  a  knight  for  his  lord's  service  ; 

and   the  barons  thus  held  a  body  of  trained  soldiers  at 

their   disposal.     When   Henry  called   his   chief  lords  to 

serve  in  the  war  of  Toulouse,  he  allowed  the  lower  tenants 

to  commute  their  service  for  sums   payable  to  the  royal 

treasury  under  the  name  of  "scutage,"  or  shield-money. 

The  "  Great  Scutage "  did  much  to  disarm  the  baronage, 

while  it  enabled  the  King  to  hire  foreign  mercenaries  for 

his  service   abroad.      Again  however  he  was  luckless   in 

war.     Kino1  Lewis  of  France  threw  himself  into  Toulouse. 

O 

Conscious  of  the  ill-compacted  nature  of  his  wide  dominion, 
Henry  shrank  from  an  open  contest  with  his  suzerain  ;  he 
withdrew  his  forces,  and  the  quarrel  ended  in  1160  by  a 
formal  alliance  and  the  betrothal  of  his  eldest  son  to  the 
daughter  of  Lewis. 

Archbishop  Henry  returned  to  his  English  realm  to  regulate  the 
Thomas.  reiations  Of  the  state  with  the  Church.  These  rested  in 
the  main  on  the  system  established  by  the  Conqueror,  and 
with  that  system  Henry  had  no  wish  to  meddle.  But  he 
was  resolute  that,  baron  or  priest,  all  should  be  equal 
before  the  law  ;  and  he  had  no  more  rnercy  for  clerical 
than  for  feudal  immunities.  The  immunities  of  the  clergy 
indeed  were  becoming  a  hindrance  to  public  justice.  The 
clerical  order  in  the  middle  ages  extended  far  beyond  the 
priesthood ;  it  included  in  Henry's  day  the  whole  of  the 
professional  and  educated  classes.  It  was  subject  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Church  courts  alone;  but  bodily 
punishment  could  only  be  inflicted  by  officers  of  the  lay 
courts,  and  so  great  had  the  jealousy  between  clergy  and 
laity  become  that  the  bishops  no  longer  sought  civil  aid 
but  restricted  themselves  to  the  purely  spiritual  punish- 
ments of  penance  and  deprivation  of  orders.  Such 


II.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  165 

penalties  formed  no  effectual  check  upon  crime,  and  while  CHAP.  III. 
preserving  the  Church  courts  the  King  aimed  at  the  delivery  HenrjT  the 
of  convicted  offenders  to  secular  punishment.  For  the  Secfnd- 
carrying  out  of  these  designs  he  sought  an  agent  in  liaj^ 
Thomas  the  Chancellor.  Thomas  had  now  been  his 
minister  for  eight  years,  and  had  fought  bravely  in  the 
war  against  Toulouse  at  the  head  of  the  seven  hundred 
knights  who  formed  his  household.  But  the  King  hatf 
other  work  for  him  than  war.  On  Theobald's  death  in 
1162  he  forced  on  the  monks  of  Canterbury  his  election 
as  Archbishop.  But  from  the  moment  of  his  appointment 
the  dramatic  temper  of  the  new  Primate  flung  its  whole 
energy  into  the  part  he  set  himself  to  play.  At  the  first 
intimation  of  Henry's  purpose  he  pointed  with  a  laugh  to 
his  gay  court  attire  :  "  You  are  choosing  a  fine  dress  "  he 
said  "  to  figure  at  the  head  of  your  Canterbury  monks ; " 
once  monk  and  Archbishop  he  passed  with  a  fevered 
earnestness  from  luxury  to  asceticism ;  and  a  visit  to  the 
Council  of  Tours  in  1163,  where  the  highest  doctrines  of 
ecclesiastical  authority  were  sanctioned  by  Pope  Alexander 
the  Third,  strengthened  his  purpose  of  struggling  for  the 
privileges  of  the  Church.  His  change  of  attitude  encouraged 
his  old  rivals  at  court  to  vex  him  with  petty  law-suits, 
but  no  breach  had  come  with  the  King  till  Henry  proposed 
that  clerical  convicts  should  be  punished  by  the  civil 
power.  Thomas  refused ;  he  would  only  consent  that  a 
clerk,  once  degraded,  should  for  after  offences  suffer  like 
a  layman.  Both  parties  appealed  to  the  "  customs  "  of  the 
realm  ;  and  it  was  to  state  these  "  customs  "  that  a  court 
was  held  in  1164  at  Clarendon  near  Marlborough. 

The  report  presented  by  bishops  and  barons  formed  the     Legal 
Constitutions   of   Clarendon,    a  code  which  in  the  bulk    Reforms- 
of   its  provisions  simply  re-enacted  the   system   of  the 
Conqueror.    Every  election  of  bishop  or  abbot  was  to  take 
place  before  royal  officers,  in  the  King's  chapel,  and  with 
the  King's  assent.     The  prelate  elect  was  bound  to  do 
homage  to  the  King  for  his  lands  before   consecration, 

YOL.  I.— 12 


166  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  and  to  hold  his  lands  as  a  barony  from  the  King,  subject 
Henr7the  to   a11   feudal  burthens   of    taxation   and   attendance   in 
second.     ^he    King's    court.     No   bishop   might  leave    the   realm 
use       without  the   royal  permission.      No   tenant    in   chief  or 
royal  servant  might  be   excommunicated,   or  their   land 
placed  under  interdict,  but  by  the  King's  assent.     What 
was    new    was    the  legislation    respecting    ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction.     The  King's  court  was  to  decide  whether  a 
suit  between  clerk  and  layman,  whose  nature  was  disputed, 
belonged  to  the  Church  courts  or  the  King's.     A  royal 
officer  was  to  be  present  at  all  ecclesiastical  proceedings 
in   order   to  confine  the   Bishop's  court   within  its   own 
due  limits,  and  a  clerk  convicted  there  passed  at  once 
under  the  civil  jurisdiction.     An  appeal  was  left  from  the 
Archbishop's  court  to  the  King's  court  for  defect  of  justice, 
but  none  might  appeal  to  the  Papal  court  save  with  the 
King's  leave.     The  privilege  of  sanctuary  in  churches  and 
churchyards  was  repealed,   so  far   as   property  and  not 
persons  was  concerned.     After  a  passionate  refusal  tho 
Primate  was  at  last  brought  to  set  his  seal  to  these  Consti- 
tutions, but  his  assent  was  soon  retracted,  and  Henry's 
savage   resentment   threw  the  moral  advantage   of    the 
position  into  his  opponent's  hands.    Vexatious  charges  were 
brought  against  Thomas,  and  he  was  summoned  to  answer 
at  a  Council  held  in  the  autumn  at  Northampton.  All  urged 
him  to  submit ;  his  very  life  was  said  to  be  in  peril  from 
the   King's  wrath.     But  in  the  presence  of  danger  the 
courage  of  the  man  rose  to  its  full  height.     Grasping  his 
archiepiscopal  cross  he  entered  the  royal  court,  forbade  the 
nobles  to  condemn  him,  and  appealed  in  the  teeth  of  the 
Constitutions   to  the   Papal  See.     Shouts  of  "Traitor!" 
followed  him  as  he  withdrew.    The  Primate  turned  fiercely 
at  the  word :  "  Were  I  a  knight,"  he  shouted  back,  "  my 
sword  should  answer  that  foul  taunt !"     Once  alone  ^how- 
ever, dread  pressed  more  heavily;  he  fled  in  disguise  at 
nightfall  and  reached  France  through  Flanders. 

Great  as  were  the  dangers  it  was  to  bring  with  it,  the 


ii. J     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  167 

flight  of  Thomas  left  Henry  free  to  cany  on  the  reforms  CHAP.  III. 
he  had  planned.  In  spite  of  denunciations  from  Primate  Henry" the 
and  Pope,  the  Constitutions  regulated  from  this  time  Second- 
the  relations  of  the  Church  with  the  state.  Henry  now  \\B9, 
turned  to  the  actual  organization  of  the  realm.  His  reign, 
it  has  been  truly  said,  "  initiated  the  rule  of  law "  as 
distinct  from  the  despotism,  whether  personal  or  tempered 
by  routine,  of  the  Norman  sovereigns.  It  was  by  suc- 
cessive "  assizes  "  or  codes  issued  with  the  sanction  of  the 
great  councils  of  barons  and  prelates  which  he  summoned 
year  by  year,  that  he  perfected  in  a  system  of  gradual 
reforms  the  administrative  measures  which  Henry  the 
First  had  begun.  The  fabric  of  our  judicial  legislation 
commences  in  1166  with  the  Assize  of  Clarendon,  the 
first  object  of  which  was  to  provide  for  the  order  of  the 
realm  by  reviving  the  old  English  system  of  mutual 
security  or  frankpledge.  No  stranger  might  abide  in  any 
place  save  a  borough  and  only  there  for  a  single  night 
unless  sureties  were  given  for  his  good  behaviour;  and 
the  list  of  such  strangers  was  to  be  submitted  to  the 
itinerant  justices.  In  the  provisions  of  this  assize  for  the 
repression  of  crime  we  find  the  origin  of  trial  by  jury,  so 
often  attributed  to  earlier  times.  Twelve  lawful  men  of 

0 

each  hundred,  with  four  from  each  township,  were  sworn 
to  present  those  who  were  known  or  reputed  as  criminals 
within  their  district  for  trial  by  ordeal.  The  jurors  were 
thus  not  merely  witnesses,  but  sworn  to  act  as  judges  also 
in  determining  the  value  of  the  charge,  and  it  is  this 
double  character  of  Henry's  jurors  that  has  descended  to 
our  "grand  jury,"  who  still  remain  charged  with  the  duty 
of  presenting  criminals  for  trial  after  examination  of  the 
witnesses  against  them.  Two  later  steps  brought  the  jury 
to  its  modern  condition.  Under  Edward  the  First  wit- 
nesses acquainted  with  the  particular  fact  in  question 
were  added  in  each  case  to  the  general  jury,  and  by  the 
separation  of  these  two  classes  of  jurors  at  a  later  time 
the  last  became  simply  "  witnesses  "  without  any  judicial 


168 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOR 


CHAP.  III.  power,  while  the  first  ceased  to  be  witnesses  at  all  and 
Hen^the  became  our  modem  jurors,  who  are  only  judges  of  the 
second,  testimony  given.  With  this  assize  too  a  practice  whicli 
iitsT  had  prevailed  from  the  earliest  English  times,  the  practice 
of  "  computation,"  passed  away.  Under  this  system  the 
accused  could  be  acquitted  of  the  charge  by  the  voluntary 
oath  of  his  neighbours  and  kinsmen  ;  but  this  was  abolished 
by  the  Assize  of  Clarendon,  and  for  the  fifty  years  which 
followed  it  his  trial,  after  the  investigation  of  the  grand 
jury,  was  found  solely  in  the  ordeal  'or  "  judgement  of 
God,"  where  innocence  was  proved  by  the  power  of 
holding  hot  iron  in  the  hand  or  by  sinking  when  flung 
into  the  water,  for  swimming  was  a  proof  of  guilt. 
It  was  the  abolition  of  the  whole  system  of  ordeal  by 
the  Council  of  Lateran  in  1216  which  led  the  way  to 
the  establishment  of  what  is  called  a  "petty  jury"  for 
the  final  trial  of  prisoners. 

Murder  But  Henry's  work  of  reorganization  had  hardly  begun 
°f  when  it  was  broken  by  the  pressure  of  the  strife  with  the 
Primate.  For  six  years  the  contest  raged  bitterly;  at 
Borne,  at  Paris,  the  agents  of  the  two  powers  intrigued 
against  each  other.  Henry  stooped  to  acts  of  the  meanest 
persecution  in  driving  the  Primate's  kinsmen  from  Eng- 
land, and  in  confiscating  the  lands  of  their  order  till  the 
monks  of  Pontigny  should  refuse  Thomas  a  home ;  while 
Beket  himself  exhausted  the  patience  of  his  friends  by 
his  violence  and  excommunications,  as  well  as  by  the 
stubbornness  with  which  he  clung  to  the  offensive 
clause  "  Saving  the  honour  of  my  order,"  the  addition 
of  which  to  his  consent  would  have  practically  neutra- 
lized the  King's  reforms.  The  Pope  counselled  mild- 
ness, the  French  king  for  a  time  withdrew  his  support, 
his  own  clerks  gave  way  at  last.  "  Come  up,"  said 
one  of  them  bitterly  when  his  horse  stumbled  on  the 
road,  "  saving  the  honour  of  the  Church  and  my  order." 
But  neither  warning  nor  desertion  moved  the  resolution  of 
the  Primate.  Henry,  in  dread  of  Papal  excommunication, 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  169 

'. 

resolved  in  1170  on  the  coronation  of  his  son:  and  this  CHAP.  III. 
office,  which  belonged  to  the  see  of  Canterbury,  he  trans-  Henry" the 
f erred  to  the  Archbishop  of  York.  But  the  Pope's  hands  Se^d- 
were  now  freed  by  his  successes  in  Italy,  and  the  threat  of  ills. 
an  interdict  forced  the  King  to  a  show  of  submission. 
The  Archbishop  was  allowed  to  return  after  a  reconcilia- 
tion with  the  King  at  Freteval,  and  the  Kentishmen  flocked 
around  him  with  uproarious  welcome  as  he  entered  Can- 
terbury. "  This  is  England,"  said  his  clerks,  as  they  saw 
the  white  headlands  of  the  coast.  "  You  will  wish  your- 
self elsewhere  before  fifty  days  are  gone,"  said  Thomas 
sadly,  and  his  foreboding  showed  his  appreciation  of 
Henry's  character.  He  was  now  in  the  royal  power,  and 
orders  had  already  been  issued  in  the  younger  Henry's 
name  for  his  arrest  when  four  knights  from  the  King's 
court,  spurred  to  outrage  by  a  passionate  outburst  of  their 
master's  wrath,  crossed  the  sea,  and  on  the  29th  of  Decem- 
ber forced  their  way  into  the  Archbishop's  palace.  After 
a  stormy  parley  with  him  in  his  chamber  they  withdrew  to 
arm.  Thomas  was  hurried  by  his  clerks  into  the  cathedral, 
but  as  he  reached  the  steps  leading  from  the  transept 
to  the  choir  his  pursuers  burst  in  from  the  cloisters. 
"  Where,"  cried  Eeginald  Fitzurse  in  the  dusk  of  the  dimly 
lighted  minster,  "where  is  the  traitor,  Thomas  Beket?" 
The  Primate  turned  resolutely  back :  "  Here  am  I,  no 
traitor,  but  a  priest  of  God,"  he  replied,  and  again  descend- 
ing the  steps  he  placed  himself  with  his  back  against  a 
pillar  and  fronted  his  foes.  All  the  bravery  and  violence 
of  his  old  knightly  life  seemed  to  revive  in  Thomas  as  he 
tossed  back  the  threats  and  demands  of  his  assailants. 
"  You  are  our  prisoner,"  shouted  Fitzurse,  and  the  four 
knights  seized  him  to  drag  him  from  the  church.  "  Do  not 
touch  me,  Pieginald,"  cried  the  Primate,  "  pander  that 
you  are,  you  owe  me  fealty  ; "  and  availing  himself  of  his 
personal  strength  he  shook  him  roughly  off.  "Strike, 
strike,"  retorted  Fitzurse,  and  blow  after  blow  struck 
Thomas  to  the  ground.  A  retainer  of  Eanulf  de  Broc 


170  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  with  the  point  of  his  sword  scattered  the  Primate's  brains 
Henry"  the  on  ^e  ground-     "  ^  us  ^e  °^>"  ^e  CT^e^  triumphantly 


second.     «  this  traitor  will  never  rise  again." 

}}*%~         The  brutal  murder  was  received  with  a  thrill  of  horror 

1  1  <5=7  . 

~  throughout  Christendom  ;  miracles  were  wrought  at  the 
Church  martyr's  tomb  ;  he  was  canonized,  and  became  the  most 
and  popular  of  English  saints.  The  stately  "  martyrdom  " 
"€m  which  rose  over  his  relics  at  Canterbury  seemed  to  embody 
the  triumph  which  his  blood  had  won.  But  the  contest 
had  in  fact  revealed  a  new  current  of  educated  opinion 
which  was  to  be  more  fatal  to  the  Church  than  the  reforms 
of  the  King.  Throughout  it  Henry  had  been  aided  by  a 
silent  revolution  which  now  began  to  part  the  purely 
literary  class  from  the  purely  clerical.  During  the  earlier 
ages  of  our  history  we  have  seen  literature  springing  up 
in  ecclesiastical  schools,  and  protecting  itself  against  the 
ignorance  and  violence  of  the  time  under  ecclesiastical 
privileges.  Almost  all  our  writers  from  Baeda  to  the  days 
of  the  Angevins  are  clergy  or  monks.  The  revival  of  letters 
which  followed  the  Conquest  was  a  purely  ecclesiastical 
revival  ;  the  intellectual  impulse  which  Bee  had  given 
to  Normandy  travelled  across  the  Channel  with  the  new 
Norman  abbots  who  were  established  in  the  greater  English 
monasteries  ;  and  writing-rooms  or  scriptoria,  where  the 
chief  works  of  Latin  literature,  patristic  or  classical,  were 
copied  and  illuminated,  the  lives  of  saints  compiled,  and 
entries  noted  in  the  monastic  chronicle,  formed  from  this 
time  a  part  of  every  religious  house  of  any  importance. 
But  the  literature  which  found  this  religious  shelter  was 
not  so  much  ecclesiastical  as  secular.  Even  the  philo- 
sophical and  devoti  onal  impulse  given  by  Anselm  produced 
no  English  work  of  theology  or  metaphysics.  The  literary 
revival  which  followed  the  Conquest  took  mainly  the  old 
historical  form.  At  Durham  Turgot  and  Simeon  threw 
into  Latin  shape  the  national  annals  to  the  time  of  Henry 
the  First  with  an  especial  regard  to  northern  affairs,  while 
the  earlier  events  of  Stephen's  reign  were  noted  down  by 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  171 

two  Priors  of  Hexham  in  the  wild  border-land  between  CHAP.  III. 
England  and  the  Scots. 

These   however  were   the   colourless   jottings   of  mere 
annalists ;  it  was  in  the  Scriptorium  of   Canterbury,  in 
Osbern's   lives    of   the    English    saints    or   in    Eadmer's 
record  of  the  struggle  of  Anselm  against  the  Eed  King 
and  his  successor  that  we  see  the  first  indications   of  a 
distinctively  English  feeling  telling  on  the  new  literature. 
The  national  impulse  is  yet  more  conspicuous  in  the  two 
historians  that  followed.     The  war-songs  of  the  English 
conquerors  of  Britain  were  preserved  by  Henry,  an  Arch- 
deacon of  Huntingdon,  who  wove  them  into  annals  com- 
piled from  Baeda  and  the  Chronicle  ;  while  William,  the 
librarian   of   Malmesbury,  as   industriously  collected  the 
lighter  ballads  which  embodied  the  popular  traditions  of 
the  English  Kings.     It  is  in  William   above   all  others 
that  we  see  the  new  tendency  of  English  literature.     In 
himself,  as  in  his  work,  he  marks  the  fusion  of  the  con- 
querors and  the  conquered,  for  he  was  of  both  English 
and    Norman    parentage    and    his    sympathies  -were    as 
divided  as  his  blood.     The  form  and  style  of  his  writings 
show  the  influence  of  those  classical  studies  which  were 
now  reviving  throughout  Christendom.     Monk,  as  he  is, 
William  discards  the  older  ecclesiastical  models  and  the 
annalistic  form.      Events  are  grouped  together   with   no 
strict  reference  to  time,  while  the  lively  narrative  flows 
rapidly  and  loosely  along  with  constant  breaks  of  digression 
over  the  general  history  of  Europe  and  the  Church.     It  is 
in  this  change  of  historic  spirit  that  William  takes  his 
place  as  first  of  the  more  statesmanlike  and  philosophic 
school   of  historians   who  began  to  arise  in  direct  con- 
nexion   with   the   Court,  and  among  whom  the    author 
of    the   chronicle   which   commonly   bears   the   name   of 
"  Benedict  of  Peterborough  "  with  his  continuator  Eoger  of 
Howden  are  the  most  conspicuous.     Both  held  judicial 
.  offices  under  Henry  the  Second,  and  it  is  to  their  position 
at  Court  that  they  owe  the  fulness  and  accuracy  of  their 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  information  as  to  affairs  at  home  and  abroad,  as  well  as 
— the  their  copious  supply  of  official  documents.     What  is  note- 
Second,     worthy   in  these   writers   is    the   purely  political  temper 
ill!"      w^tn  wnicn  they  reoard  the  conflict  of  Church  and  State 
in  their  time.      But  the  English  court  had  now  become 
the  centre  of  a  distinctly  secular  literature.     The  trea- 
tise  of  Eanulf  de    Glanvill,    a  justiciar    of   Henry    the 
Second,  is  the  earliest  work  on  English  law,  as   that  of 
the  royal  treasurer,  Eichard  Fitz-Neal,  on  the  Exchequer 
is  the  earliest  on  English  government. 

Gerald  of      Still  more  distinctly  secular  than  these,  though  the  work 
Wales.     Of  a  priest  who  claimed  to  be  a  bishop,  are  the  writings 
of  Gerald  de  Barri.     Gerald  is  the  father  of  our  popular 
literature  as  he  is  the  originator  of  the  political  and  eccle- 
siastical pamphlet.     Welsh  blood  (as  his   usual  name  of 
Giraldus  Cambrensis  implies)  mixed  with  Norman  in  his 
veins,  and  something  of  the  restless  Celtic  fire  runs  alike 
through  his  writings  and  his  life.     A  busy  scholar  at  Paris, 
a  reforming  Archdeacon  in  Wales,  the  wittiest  of  Court 
chaplains,  the  most  troublesome  of  bishops,  Gerald  became 
the  gayest  and  most  amusing  of  all  the  authors  of  his 
time.     In  his   hands  the  stately  Latin  tongue   took   the 
vivacity   and  picturesqueness    of    the    jongleur's   verse. 
Eeared  as  he  had  been  in  classic  studies,  he  threw  pedantry 
contemptuously  aside.     "  It  is  better  to  be  dumb  than  not 
to  be  understood,"  is  his  characteristic  apology  for  the 
novelty  of  his  style :  "  new  times  require  new  fashions, 
and   so  I   have   thrown  utterly  aside   the   old    and   dry 
method   of    some   authors   and   aimed    at   adopting   the 
fashion   of   speech  which   is    actually  in  vogue  to-day." 
His  tract  on  the  conquest  of  Ireland  and  his  account  of 
Wales,  which  are  in  fact  reports  of  two  journeys  under- 
taken  in    those    countries    with    John   and  Archbishop 
Baldwin,  illustrate  his  rapid  faculty  of   careless  observa- 
tion, his    audacity,  and  his  good  sense.       They  are  just 
the  sort  of  lively,  dashing  letters  that  we  find  in  the  cor- 
respondence of  .a  modem  journal.      There  is  the  same 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  173 

— • — 

modern  tone   in   his   political   pamphlets ;    his  profusion  CHAP.  III. 
of  jests,   his  fund  of  anecdote,  the  aptness  of  his  quota-  Henry" the 
tions,    his   natural  shrewdness   and   critical   acumen,  the     Second< 
clearness  and  vivacity  of  his  style,  are  backed  by  a  fear-      \\S9' 
lessness   and  impetuosity   that   made   him   a    dangerous 
assailant    even   to   such    a  ruler    as    Henry  the   Second. 
The  invectives  in  which  Gerald  poured    out    his  resent- 
ment against  the    Angevins    are    the  cause    of   half  the 
scandal  about  Henry  and  his  sons  which    has  found  its 
way  into  history.     His  life  was  wasted  in  an  ineffectual 
attempt  to  secure  the  see  of  St.  David's,  but  his  pungent 
pen  played  its  part  in  rousing  the*  nation    to    its    later 
struggle  with  the  Crown. 

A  tone  of  distinct  hostility  to  the  Church  developed  Romance, 
itself  almost  from  the  first  among  the  singers  of  romance. 
Romance  had  long  before  taken  root  in  the  court  of  Henry 
the  First,  where  under  the  patronage  of  Queen  Maud  the 
dreams  of  Arthur,  so  long  cherished  by  the  Celts  of  Brit- 
anny,  and  which  had  travelled  to  Wales  in  the  train  of  the 
exile  Rhys  ap  Tewdor,  took  shape  in  the  History  of  the 
Britons  by  Geoffry  of  Monmouth.  Myth,  legend,  tradition, 
the  classical  pedantry  of  the  day,  Welsh  hopes  of  future 
triumph  over  the  Saxon,  the  memories  of  the  Crusades 
and  of  the  world-wide  dominion  of  Charles*  the  Great, 
were  mingled  together  by  this  daring  fabulist  in  a  work 
whose  popularity  became  at  once  immense.  Alfred  of 
Beverly  transferred  Geoffry's  inventions  into  the  region  of 
sober  history,  while  two  Norman  trouvcurs,  Gaimar  and 
Wace,  translated  them  into  French  verse.  So  complete 
was  the  credence  they  obtained  that  Arthur's  tomb 
at  Glastonbury  was  visited  by  Henry  the  Second  while 
the  child  of  his  son  Geoffry  and  of  Constance  of 
Britanny  received  the  name  of  the  Celtic  hero.  Out 
of  Geoffry's  creation  grew  little  by  little  the  poem  of  the 
Table  Round.  Britanny,  which  had  mingled  with  the  story 
of  Arthur  the  older  and  more  mysterious  legend  of  the 
Enchanter  Merlin,  lent  that  of  Lancelot  to  the  wandering 


174  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  minstrels  of  the  day,  who  moulded  it  as  they  wandered 

Henry"  the  flom  hall  to  hall  into  the  familiar  tale  of   knighthood 

Second.     wrested   from  its  loyalty  by  the   love    of  woman.     The' 

ills"     stories  of  Tristram  and  Gawayne,  at  first  as  independent 

as  that  of  Lancelot,  were  drawn  with  it  into  the  whirlpool 

of  Arthurian  romance  ;  and  when  the  Church,  jealous  of 

the  popularity  of  the  legends  of  chivalry,  invented  as  a 

counteracting  influence  the  poem  of  the  Sacred  Dish,  the 

San  Graal  which  held  the  blood  of  the  Cross  invisible  to 

all  eyes  but  those  of  the  pure  in  heart,  the  genius  of  a 

Court  poet,  Walter  de  Map,  wove  the  rival  legends  together, 

sent  Arthur  and  his  knights  wandering  over  sea  and  land 

in  quest -of  the  San  Graal,   and  crowned  the   work   by 

the  figure  of  Sir  Galahad,  the  type  of  ideal  knighthood, 

without  fear  and  without  reproach. 

Walter  Walter  stands  before  us  as  the  representative  of  a 
de  Map.  su^en  outburst  of  literary,  social,  and  religious  criticism 
which  followed  this  growth  of  romance  and  the  appearance 
of  a  freer  historical  tone  in  the  court  of  the  two  Henries. 
Born  on  the  Welsh  border,  a  student  at  Paris,  a  favourite 
with  the  King,  a  royal  chaplain,  justiciary,  and  ambas- 
sador, his  genius  was  as  various  as  it  was  prolific.  He  is 
as  much  at  his  ease  in  sweeping  together  the  chit-chat 
of  the  time  in  his  "  Courtly  Trifles  "  as  in  creating  the 
character  of  Sir  Galahad.  But  he  only  rose  to  his  fullest 
strength  when  he  turned  from  the  fields  of  romance  to 
that  of  Church  reform  and  embodied  the  ecclesiastical 
abuses  of  his  day  in  the  figure  of  his  "  Bishop  Goliath." 
The  whole  spirit  of  Henry  and  his  Court  in  their  struggle 
with  Thomas  is  reflected  and  illustrated  in  the  apocalypse 
and  confession  of  this  imaginary  prelate.  Picture  after 
picture  strips  the  veil  from  the  corruption  of  the  medi- 
aeval Church,  its  indolence,  its  thirst  for  gain,  its  secret 
immorality.  The  whole  body  of  the  clergy  from  Pope  to 
hedge-priest  is  painted  as  busy  in  the  chase  for  gain ; 
what  escapes  the  bishop  is  snapped  up  by  the  archdeacon, 
what  escapes  the  archdeacon  is  nosed  and  hunted  down  by 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


175 


Henry  the 
Second. 

1154- 
1189. 


Invasion 

of 
Ireland. 


the  dean,  while  a  host  of  minor  officials  prowl  hungrily  CHAP.  III. 
around  these  greater  marauders.  Out  of  the  crowd  of 
figures  which  fills  the  canvas  of  the  satirist,  pluralist 
vicars,  abbots  "  purple  as  their  wines,"  monks  feeding  and 
chattering  together  like  parrots  in  the  refectory,  rises  the 
Philistine  Bishop,  light  of  purpose,  void  of  conscience, 
lost  in  sensuality,  drunken,  unchaste,  the  Goliath  who 
sums  up  the  enormities  of  all,  and  against  whose  forehead 
this  new  David  slings  his  sharp  pebble  of  the  brook. 

It  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  unjust  to  treat  such 
invectives  as  sober  history,  or  to  judge  the  Church  of  the 
twelfth  century  by  the  taunts  of  Walter  de  Map.  What 
writings  such  as  his  bring  home  to  us  is  the  upgrowth  of 
a  new  literary  class,  not  only  standing  apart  from  the 
Church  but  regarding  it  with  a  hardly  disguised  ill-will, 
and  breaking  down  the  unquestioning  reverence  with 
which  men  had  till  now  regarded  it  by  their  sarcasm  and 
abuse.  The  tone  of  intellectual  contempt  which  begins 
with  Walter  de  Map  goes  deepening  on  till  it  culminates 
in  Chaucer  and  passes  into  the  open  revolt  of  the  Lollard. 
But  even  in  these  early  days  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  it 
gave  Henry  strength  in  his  contest  with  the  Church.  So 
little  indeed  did  he  suffer  from  the  murder  of  Archbishop 
Thomas  that  the  years  which  follow  it  form  th&  grandest 
portion  of  his  reign.  While  Eome  was  threatening  excom- 
munication he  added  a  new  realm  to  his  dominions.  Ireland 
had  long  since  fallen  from  the  civilization  arid  learning 
which  its  missionaries  brought  in  the  seventh  century 
to  the  shores  of  Northumbria.  Every  element  of  improve- 
ment or  progress  which  had  been  introduced  into  the 
island  disappeared  in  the  long  and  desperate  struggle  with 
the  Danes.  The  coast-towns  which  the  invaders  founded, 
such  as  Dublin  or  Waterford,  remained  Danish  in  blood 
and  manners  and  at  feud  with  the  Celtic  tribes  around 
them,  though  sometimes  forced  by  the  fortunes  of  war  to 
pay  tribute  and  to  accept  the  over-lordship  of  the  Irish 


Kings. 


It  was  through  these  towns   however  that  the 


176  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  intercourse   with   England   which   had   ceased   since  the 
Henry"  the  eighth   century    was    to   some    extent    renewed   in    the 
Second,     eleventh.     Cut  off'    from   the   Church  of    the  island  by 
ii897      national  antipathy,  the  Danish  coast-cities  applied  to  the 
— •       See  of  Canterbury  for  the  ordination  of  their  bishops,  and 
acknowledged  a  right  of  spiritual  supervision  in  Lanfranc  ' 
and  Anselm.    The  relations  thus  formed  were  drawn  closer 
by  a   slave-trade  between  the   two  countries  which  the 
Conqueror  and  Bishop  Wulfstan  succeeded  for  a  time  in 
suppressing  at  Bristol  but  which  appears  to  have  quickly 
revived.     At  the  time  of   Henry  the  Second's  accession 
Ireland  was  full  of  Englishmen  who  had  been  kidnapped 
and   sold  into  slavery  in  spite  of  royal  prohibitions  and 
the  spiritual  menaces  of  the  English  Church.     The  slave- 
trade  afforded  a  legitimate  pretext  for  war,  had  a  pretext 
been  needed  by  the  ambition  of  Henry  the  Second ;  and 
within  a  few  months  of  that  King's  coronation  John  of 
Salisbury  was  despatched  to  obtain  the  Papal  sanction  for 
an  invasion   of   the  island.      The   enterprize,  as  it  was 
laid  before    Pope    Hadrian   IV.,   took   the   colour    of    a 
crusade.     The  isolation  of  Ireland  from  the  general  body 
of  Christendom,  the  absence  of  learning  and  civilization, 
the   scandalous  vices  of  its  people,  were  alleged  as  the 
grounds  of  Henry's  action.     It  was  the  general  belief  of 
the  time  that  all  islands  fell  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Papal   See,   and  it  was   as   a  possession  of  the  Pioman 
Church  that  Henry  sought  Hadrian's  permission  to  enter 
Ireland.     His  aim  was  "  to  enlarge  the   bounds   of   the 
Church,  to  restrain  the  progress  of  vices,  to  correct  the 
manners  of  its  people  and  to  plant  virtue  among  them, 
and  to  increase  the  Christian  religion."     He   engaged  to 
"  subject  the  people  to  laws,  to  extirpate  vicious  customs, 
to  respect  the  rights  of  the  native  Churches,  and  to  enforce 
the  payment  of   Peter's  pence  "  as  a  recognition  of  the 
overlordship  of  the   Koinan  See.      Hadrian   by  his  bull 
approved  the  enterprize  as  one  prompted  by  "  the  ardour 
of  faith  and  love  of  religion,"  and  declared  his  will  that 


55 


just  before 
THE   ENGLISH.  INVASION 


Harper  «c.  Brothers  ,.New York. 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  177 

' 

the   people   of    Ireland   should   receive   Henry   with   all  CHAP.  Ill 
honour,  and  revere  him  as  their  lord.  Henry^tie 

The  Papal  bull  was  produced  in  a  great  council  of  the  Second- 
English  baronage,  but  the  opposition  was  strong  enough  to  lias. 
force  on  Henry  a  temporary  abandonment  of  his  designs, 
and  fourteen  years  passed  before  the  scheme  was  brought 
to  life  again  by  the  flight  of  Dermod,  King  of  Leinster, 
to  Henry's  court.  Uermod  had  been  driven  from  his 
dominions  in  one  of  the  endless  civil  wars  which  devastated 
the  island ;  he  now  did  homage  for  his  kingdom  to  Henry, 
and  returned  to  Ireland  with  promises  of  aid  from  the 
English  knighthood.  He  was  followed  in  1169  by  Eobert 
FitzStephen,  a  son  of  the  Constable  of  Cardigan,  with  a 
little  band  of  a  hundred  and  forty  knights,  sixty  men-at- 
arms,  and  three  or  four  hundred  Welsh  archers.  Small  as 
was  the  number  of  the  adventurers,  their  horses  and  arms 
proved  irresistible  by  the  Irish  kernes  ;  a  sally  of  the  men 
of  Wexford  was  avenged  by  the  storm  of  their  town ;  the 
Ossory  clans  were  defeated  with  a  terrible  slaughter,  and 
Dermod,  seizing  a  head  from  the  heap  of  trophies  which 
his  men  piled  at  his  feet,  tore  off  in  savage  triumph  its 
nose  and  lips  with  his  teeth.  The  arrival  of  fresh  forces 
heralded  the  coming  of  Richard  of  Clare,  Earl  of  Pembroke 
and  Striguil,  a  ruined  baron  who  bore  the  nickname  of 
Strongbovv,  and  who  in  defiance  of  Henry's  prohibition 
landed  near  Waterford  with  a  force  of  fifteen  hundred  men 
as  Dermod's  mercenary.  The  city  was  at  once  stormed, 
and  the  united  forces  of  the  Earl  and  King  marched  to 
the  siege  of  Dublin.  In  spite  of  a  relief  attempted  by 
the  King  of  Connaught,  who  was  recognized  as  overking 
of  the  island  by  the  rest  of  the  tribes,  Dublin  was  taken 
by  surprize ;  and  the  marriage  of  Richard  with  Eva, 
Dermod's  daughter,  left  the  Earl  on  the  death  of  his 
father-in-law  which  followed  quickly  on  these  successes 
master  of  his  kingdom  of  Leinster.  The  new  lord  had 
soon  however  to  hurry  back  to  England  and  appease  the 
jealousy  of  Henry  by  the  surrender  of  Dublin  to  the 


178 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

Henry  the 
Second. 

1154 
1189. 

Revolt  of 

the 

younger 
Henry. 


Crown,  by  doing  homage  for  Leinster  as  an  English 
lordship,  and  by  accompanying  the  King  in  1171  on  a 
voyage  to  the  new  dominion  which  the  adventurers 
had  won. 

Had  fate  suffered  Henry  to  carry  out  his  purpose,  the 
conquest  of  Ireland  would  now  have  been  accomplished. 
The  King  of  Connaught  indeed  and  the  chiefs  of  Ulster 
refused  him  homage,  but  the  rest  of  the  Irish  tribes  owneM 
his  suzerainty ;  the  bishops  in  synod  at  Cashel  recognized 
him  as  their  lord ;  and  he  was  preparing  to  penetrate  to 
the  north  and  west,  and  to  secure  his  conquest  by  a 
systematic  erection  of  castles  throughout  the  country, 
when  the  need  of  making  terms  with  Rome,  whose  inter- 
dict threatened  to  avenge  the  murder  of  Archbishop 
Thomas,  recalled  him  in  the  spring  of  1172  to  Normandy. 
Henry  averted  the  threatened  sentence  by  a  show  of 
submission.  The  judicial  provisions  in  the  Constitu- 
tions of  Clarendon  were  in  form  annulled,  and  liberty 
of  election  was  restored  in  the  case  of  bishopricks  and 
abbacies.  In  reality  however  the  victory  rested  with  the 
King.  Throughout  his  reign  ecclesiastical  appointments 
remained  practically  in  his  hands  and  the  King's  Court 
asserted  its  power  over  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  of  the 
bishops.  But  the  strife  with  Thomas  had  roused  into  active 
life  every  element  of  danger  which  surrounded  Henry,  the 
envious  dread  of  his  neighbours,  the  disaffection  of  his 
own  house,  the  disgust  of  the  barons  at  the  repeated  blows 
which  he  levelled  at  their  military  and  judicial  power. 
The  King's  withdrawal  of'  the  office  of  sheriff  from  the 
great  nobles  of  the  shire  to  entrust  it  to  the  lawyers  and 
courtiers  who  already  furnished  the  staff  of  the  royal 
judges  quickened  the  resentment  of  the  baronage  into 
revolt.  His  wife  Eleanor,  now  parted  from  Henry  by 
a  bitter  hate,  spurred  her  eldest  son,  whose  coronation  had 
given  him  the  title  of  king,  to  demand  possession  of  the 
English  realm.  On  his  father's  refusal  the  boy  sought 
refuge  with  Lewis  of  France,  and  his  flight  was  the  signal 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  179 

for  a  vast  rising.  France,  Flanders,  and  Scotland  joined  CHAP.  III. 
in  league  against  Henry;  his  younger  sons,  Eichard  and  Henry"  the 
Geoff'ry,  took  up  arms  in  Aquitaine,  while  the  Earl  of  Second. 
Leicester  sailed  from  Flanders  with  an  army  of  mercenaries  iiisT 
to  stir  up  England  to  revolt.  The  Earl's  descent  ended  in 
a  crushing  defeat  near  St.  Edmundsbury  at  the  hands  of  the 
King's  justiciars;  but  no  sooner  had  the  French  king 
entered  Xormandy  and  invested  Eouen  than  the  revolt  of 
the  baronage  burst  into  flame.  The  Scots  crossed  the  border, 
Eoger  Mowbray  rcse  in  Yorkshire,  Ferrars,  Earl  of  Derby,  in 
the  midland  shires,  Hugh  Bigod  in  the  eastern  counties, 
while  a  Flemish  fleet  prepared  to  support  the  insurrection 
by  a  descent  upon  the  coast.  The  murder  of  Archbishop 
Thomas  still  hung  round  Henry's  neck,  and  his  first  act 
in  hurrying  to  England  to  meet  these  perils  in  1174  was 
to  prostrate  himself  before  the  shrine  of  the  new  martyr 
and  to  submit  to  a  public  scourging  in  expiation  of  his 
sin.  But  the  penance  was  hardly  wrought  when  all  danger 
was  dispelled  by  a  series  of  triumphs.  The  King  of 
Scotland,  William  the  Lion,  surprized  by  the  English 
under  cover  of  a  mist,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  justiciary, 
Eanulf  de  Glanvill,  and  at  the  retreat  of  the  Scots  the 
English  rebels  hastened  to  lay  down  their  arms.  With 
the  army  of  mercenaries  which  he  had  brought  over  sea 
Henry  was  able  to  return  to  Normandy,  to  raise  the  siege 
of  Eouen,  and  to  reduce  his  sons  to  submission. 

Through  the  next  ten  years  Henry's  power  was  at  its  £afer 
height.  The  French  King  was  cowed.  The  Scotch  King  reforms. 
bought  his  release  in  1175  by  owning  Henry's  suzerainty. 
The  Scotch  barons  did  homage,  and  English  garrisons 
manned  the  strongest  of  the  Scotch  castles.  In  England 
itself  church  and  baronage  were  alike  at  the  King's  mercy. 
Eleanor  was  imprisoned  :  and  the  younger  Henry,  though 
always  troublesome,  remained  powerless  to  do  harm.  The 
King  availed  himself  of  this  rest  from  outer  foes  to  push 
forward  his  judicial  and  administrative  organization.  At 
the  outset  of  his  reign  he  had  restored  the  Kind's  court  and 


180  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  the  occasional  circuits  of  its  justices;  but  the  revolt  was 
Henry" the  hardly  over  when  in  1176  the  Assize  of  Northampton  ren- 
Second.  dered  this  institution  permanent  and  regular  by  dividing  the 
11897  kingdom  into  six  districts,  to  each  of  which  three  itinerant 
judges  were  assigned.  The  circuits"  thus  marked  out 
correspond  roughly  with  those  that  still  exist.  The  primary 
object  of  these  circuits  was  financial ;  but  the  rendering  of 
the  King's  justice  went  on  side  by  side  with  the  exaction 
of  the  King's  dues,  and  this  carrying  of  justice  to  every 
corner  of  the  realm  was  made  still  more  effective  by  the 
abolition  of  all  feudal  exemptions  from  the  royal  juris- 
diction. The  chief  danger  of  the  new  system  lay  in 
the  opportunities  it  afforded  to  judicial  corruption  ;  and 
so  great  were  its  abuses,  that  in  1178  Henry  was  forced 
to  restrict  for  a  while  the  number  of  justices  to  five,  and 
to  reserve  appeals  from  their  court  to  himself  in  council. 
The  Court  of  Appeal  which  was  thus  created,  that  of  the 
King  in  Council,  gave  birth  as  time  went  on  to  tribunal 
after  tribunal.  It  is  from  it  that  the  judicial  powers  now 
exercized  by  the  Privy  Council  are  derived,  as  well  as  the 
equitable  jurisdiction  of  the  Chancellor.  In  the  next  cen- 
tury it  became  the  Great  Council  of  the  realm,  and  it  is 
from  this  Great  Council,  in  its  two  distinct  capacities, 
that  the  Privy  Council  drew  its  legislative,  and  the  House 
of  Lords  its  judicial  character.  The  Court  of  Star 
Chamber  and  the  Judicial  Committee  of  the  Privy 
Council  are  later  offshoots  of  Henry's  Court  of  Appeal. 
From  the  judicial  organization  of  the  realm,  he  turned 
to  its  military  organization,  and  in  1181  an  Assize  of 
Arms  restored  the  national  fyrd  or  militia  to  the  place 
which  it  had  lost  at  the  Conquest.  The  substitution  of 
scutage  for  military  service  had  freed  the  crown  from 
its  dependence  on  the  baronage  and  its  feudal  retainers ; 
the  Assize  of  Arms  replaced  this  feudal  organization  by 
the  older  obligation  of  every  freeman  to  serve  in  defence 
of  the  realm.  Every  knight  was  now  bound  to  appear  in 
coat  of  mail  and  with  shield  and  lance,  every  freeholder 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


181 


Second. 

1154- 
1189. 

Henry's 

Death,  i 


with  lance  and  hauberk,  every  burgess  and  poorer  freeman  CHAP.  III. 
with  lance  and  helmet,  at  the  King's  call.     The  levy  of  Henry*  the 
an  armed  nation  was  thus  placed  wholly  at  the  disposal 
of  the  Crown  for  purposes  of  defence. 

A  fresh  revolt  of  the  younger  Henry  with  his  brother 
Geoffry  in  1183  hardly  broke  the  current  of  Henry's 
success.  The  revolt  ended  with  the  young  King's  death, 
and  in  1186  this  was  followed  by  the  death  of  Geoffry. 
Kichard,  now  his  father's  heir,  remained  busy  in  Aqui- 
taine ;  and  Henry  was  himself  occupied  with  plans  for  the 
recovery  of  Jerusalem,  which  had  been  taken  by  Saladin 
in  1187.  The  "  Saladin  tithe,"  a  tax  levied  on  all  goods 
and  chattels,  and  memorable  as  the  first  English  instance 
of  taxation  on  personal  property,  was  granted  to  the  King 
at  the  opening  of  1188  to  support  his  intended  Crusade. 
But  the  Crusade  was  hindered  by  strife  which  broke  out 
between  Richard  and  the  new  French  King,  Philip ;  and 
while  Henry  strove  in  vain  to  bring  about  peace,  a  sus- 
picion that  he  purposed  to  make  his  youngest  son,  John, 
his  heir  drove  Eichard  to  Philip's  side.  His  father, 
broken  in  health  and  spirits,  negotiated  fruitlessly  through 
the  winter,  but  with  the  spring  of  1189  Eichard  and  the 
French  King  suddenly  appeared  before  Le  Mans.  Henry 
was  driven  in  headlong  flight  from  the  town.  Tradition 
tells  how  from  a  height  where  he  halted  to  look  back  on 
the  burning  city,  so  dear  to  him  as  his  birthplace,  the 
King  hurled  his  curse  against  God :  "  Since  Thou  hast 
taken  from  me  the  town  I  loved  best,  where  I  was  born 
and  bred,  and  where  my  father  lies  buried,  I  will  have  my 
revenge  on  Thee  too— I  will  rob  Thee  of  that  thing  Thou 
lovest  most  in  me."  If  the  words  were  uttered,  they  were 
the  frenzied  words  of  a  dying  man.  Death  drew  Henry  to 
the  home  of  his  race,  but  Tours  fell  as  he  lay  at  Saumur, 
and  the  hunted  King  was  driven  to  beg  mercy  from  his 
foes.  They  gave  him  the  list  of  the  conspirators  against 
him :  at  its  head  was  the  name  of  one,  his  love  for  whom 
had  brought  with  it  the  ruin  that  was  crushing  him,  his 

YOL.  I.— 13 


182  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.    [BOOK  H. 

CHAP.  III.  youngest  son,  John.     "  Now,"  he  said,  as  he  turned  his 

Henry" the  ^ace  ^°  ^'ne  wa^>  "  ^  things  go  as  they  will — I  care  no 

second,     more  for  myself  or  for  the  world."     The  end  was  come  at 

lisa'     last-     Henry  was  borne  to  Chinon  by  the  silvery  waters 

of  Vienne,  and  muttering,  "  Shame,  shame  on  a  conquered 

King,"  passed  sullenly  away. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ANGEVIN  KINGS. 

1189—1204. 

THE  fall  of  Henry  the  Second  only  showed  the  strength  of  John  and 
the  system  he  had  built  up  on  this  side  the  sea.  In  the  Long- 
hands  of  the  Justiciar,  Eanulf  de  Glanvill,  England  remained  chamP- 
peaceful  through  the  last  stormy  months  of  his  reign, 
and  his  successor  Richard  found  it  undisturbed  when  he 
came  for  his  crowning  in  the  autumn  of  1189.  Though  born 
at  Oxford,  Richard  had  been  bred  in  Aquitaine  ;  he  was  an 
utter  stranger  to  his  realm,  and  his  visit  was  simply  for  the 
purpose  of  gathering  money  for  a  Crusade.  Sheriffdoms, 
bishopricks,  were  sold  ;  even  the  supremacy  over  Scotland 
was  bought  back  again  by  William  the  Lion ;  and  it  was  with 
the  wealth  which  these  measures  won  that  Ricnard  made 
his  way  in  1190  to  Marseilles  and  sailed  thence  to  Messina. 
Here  he  found  his  army  and  a  host  under  King  Philip  of 
France ;  and  the  winter  was  spent  in  quarrels  between  the 
two  Kings  and  a  strife  between  Richard  and  Tancred  of 
Sicily.  In  the  spring  of  1191  his  mother  Eleanor  arrived 
with  ill  news  from  England.  Richard  had  left  the  realm 
under  the  regency  of  two  bishops,  Hugh  Puiset  of  Durham 
and  William  Longchamp  of  Ely ;  but  before  quitting  France 
he  had  entrusted  it  wholly  to  the  latter,  who  stood  at  the 
head  of  Church  and  State  as  at  once  Justiciar  and  Papal 
Legate.  Longchamp  was  loyal  to  the  King,  but  his  exac- 
tions and  scorn  of  Englishmen  roused  a  fierce  hatred  among 
the  baronage,  and  this  hatred  found  a  head  in  John.  While 


184  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

THAP.  IV.  richly  gifting  his  brother  with  earldoms  and  lands,  Richard 
^       had  taken  oath  from  him  that  he  would  quit  England  for 
^5iesin    three  years.    But  tidings  that  the  Justiciar  was  striving  to 
1189-     secure  the  succession    of    Arthur,  the  child  of  his  elder 
1204.     brother   Geoffry   and   of   Constance    of  Britanny,  to   the 
English  crown  at  once  recalled  John  to  the  realm,   and 
peace  between  him  and  Longchamp  was  only  preserved  by 
the  influence  of  the  queen-mother  Eleanor.      Richard  met 
these   news    by  sending  William  of  Coutances,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Rouen,  with  full  but  secret  powers  to  England. 
On  his  landing  in  the  summer  of  1191  William  found  the 
country  already  in  arms.     No  battle  had  been  fought,  but 
John  had  seized  many  of  the  royal  castles,  and  the  indig- 
nation   stirred    by   Longchamp's    arrest    of     Archbishop 
Geoffry  of  York,    a    bastard  son    of  Henry  the  Second, 
called  the  whole  baronage  to  the  field.   %The  nobles  swore 
fealty  to    John  as  Richard's  successor,    and  William    of 
Coutances  saw  himself  forced  to  show  his  commission  as 
Justiciar,  and  to  assent  to  Longchamp's  exile  from  the 
realm. 

Richard.  The  tidings  of  this  revolution  reached  Richard  in  the 
Holy  Land.  He  had  landed  at  Acre  in  the  summer  and 
joined  with  the  French  King  in  its  siege.  But  on  the  sur- 
render of  the  town  Philip  at  once  sailed  home,  while  Richard, 
marching  from  Acre  to  Joppa,  pushed  inland  to  Jerusalem. 
The  city  however  was  saved  by  false  news  of  its  strength, 
and  through  the  following  winter  and  the  spring  of  1192 
the  King  limited  his  activity  to  securing  the  fortresses  of 
southern  Palestine.  In  June  he  again  advanced  on  Jeru- 
salem, but  the  revolt  of  his  army  forced  him  a  second 
time  to  fall  back,  and  news  of  Philip's  intrigues  with 
John  drove  him  to  abandon  further  efforts.  There  was 
need  to  hasten  home.  Sailing  for  speed's  sake  in  a  mer- 
chant vessel,  he  was  driven  by  a  storm  on  the  Adriatic 
coast,  and  while  journeying  in  disguise  overland  arrested  in 
December  at  Vienna  by  his  personal  enemy,  Duke  Leopold  of 
Austria.  Through  the  whole  year  John,  in  disgust  at  his 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


185 


displacement  by  William  of  Coutances,  had  been  plotting 
fruitlessly  with  Philip.  But  the  news  of  this  capture  at 
once  roused  both  to  activity.  John  secured  his  castles  and 
seized  Windsor,  giving  out  that  the  King  would  never 
return ;  while  Philip  strove  to  induce  the  Emperor,  Henry 
the  Sixth,  to  whom  the  Duke  of  Austria  had  given  Pdchard 
up,  to  retain  his  captive.  But  a  new  influence  now  ap- 
peared on  the  scene.  The  see  of  Canterbury  was  vacant,  and 
Richard  from  his  prison  bestowed  it  on  Hubert  Walter, 
the  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  a  nephew  of  Ranulf  de  Glanvill 
and  who  had  acted  as  secretary  to  Bishop  Longchamp. 
Hubert's  ability  was  seen  in  the  skill  with  which  he 
held  John  at  bay  and  raised  the  enormous  ransom 
which  Henry  demanded,  the  whole  people,  clergy  as  well 
as  lay,  paying  a  fourth  of  their  moveable  goods.  To 
gain  his  release  however  Richard  was  forced  besides 
this  payment  of  ransom  to  do  homage  to  the  Emperor, 
not  only  for  the  kingdom  of  Aries  with  which  Henry 
invested  him  but  for  England  itself,  whose  crown  he 
resigned  into  the  Emperor's  hands  and  received  back  as  a 
fief.  But  John's  open  revolt  made  even  these  terms 
welcome,  and  Richard  huiried  to  England  in  the  spring  of 
1194.  He  found  the  rising  already  quelled  by  the  decision 
with  which  the  Primate  led  an  army  against  Joh'n's  castles, 
and  his  landing  was  followed  by  his  brother's  complete 
submission. 

The  firmness  of  Hubert  Walter  had  secured  order  in  Eng- 
land, but  oversea  Richard  found  himself  face  to  face  with 
dangers  which  he  was  too  clear-sighted  to  undervalue.  Des- 
titute of  his  father's  administrative  genius,  less  ingenious 
in  his  political  conceptions  than  John,  Richard  was  far 
from  being  a  mere  soldier.  A  love  of  adventure,  a  pride  in 
sheer  physical  strength,  here  and  there  a  romantic  gene- 
rosity, jostled  roughly  with  the  craft,  the  unscrapulousness, 
the  violence  of  his  race ;  but  he  was  at  heart  a  statesman, 
cool  and  patient  in  the  execution  of  his  plans  as  he  was 
bold  in  their  conception.  "  The  devil  is  loose ;  take  care 


CHAP.  IV. 

The 

Angevin 
Kings. 

1189- 

1204. 


Richard 

and 
Philip. 


186 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1189- 

1204-. 


CHAP.  IV.  of  yourself,"  Philip  had  written  to  John  at  the  news  of 
^  Richard's  release.  In  the  Trench  King's  case  a  restless 
"Kings"1  ambition  was  spurred  to  action  by  insults  which  he  had 
borne  during  the  Crusade.  He  had  availed  himself  of 
Richard's  imprisonment  to  invade  ISTormandy,  while  the 
lords  of  Aquitaine  rose  in  open  revolt  under  the  trouba- 
dour Bertrand  de  Born.  Jealousy  of  the  rule  of  strangers, 
weariness  of  the  turbulence  of  the  mercenary  soldiers  of 
the  Angevins  or  of  the  greed  and  oppression  of  their 
financial  administration,  combined  with  an  impatience  of 
their  firm  government  and  vigorous  justice  to  alienate 
the  nobles  of  their  provinces  on  the  Continent.  Loyalty 
among  the  people  there  was  none  ;  even  Anjou,  the  home 
of  their  race,  drifted  towards  Philip  as  steadily  as  Poitou. 
But  in  warlike  ability  Richard  was  more  than  Philip's 
peer.  He  held  him  in  check  on  the  Norman  frontier  and 
surprized  his  treasure  at  Freteval  while  he  reduced  to  sub- 
mission the  rebels  of  Aquitaine.  Hubert  Walter  gathered 
vast  sums  to  support  the  army  of  mercenaries  which  Richard 
led  against  his  foes.  The  country  groaned  under  its 
burdens,  but  it  owned  the  justice  and  firmness  of  the 
Primate's  rule,  and  the  measures  which  he  took  to  procure 
money  with  as  little  oppression  as  might  be  proved  steps 
in  the  education  of  the  nation  in  its  own  self-government. 
The  taxes  were  assessed  by  a  jury  of  sworn  knights  at  each 
circuit  of  the  justices ;  the  grand  jury  of  the  county  was 
based  on  the  election  of  knights  in  the  hundred  courts ; 
and  the  keeping  of  pleas  of  the  crown  was  taken  from 
the  sheriff  and  given  to  a  newly  elected  officer,  the  coroner. 
In  these  elections  were  found  at  a  later  time  precedents  for 
parliamentary  representation ;  in  Hubert's  mind  they  were 
doubtless  intended  to  do  little  more  than  reconcile  the 
people  to  the  crushing  taxation.  His  work  poured  a  million 
into  the  treasury,  and  enabled  Richard  during  a  short  truce 
to  detach  Flanders  by  his  bribes  from  the  French  alliance, 
and  to  unite  the  Counts  of  Qhartres,  Champagne,  and 
Boulogne  with  the  Bretons  in  a  revolt  against  Philip. 


II.]     ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214. 


187 


1189- 

1204, 

Chateau 
Gaillan1. 


He  won  a  yet  more  valuable  aid  in  the  election  of  his  CHAP.  IV. 
nephew  Otto  of  Saxony,  a  son  of  Henry  the  Lion,  to  the        xiie 
German  throne,  and  his  envoy  William.  Longchamp  knitted     "Kings!11 
an  alliance  which  would  bring  the  German  lances  to  bear 
on  the  King  of  Paris. 

But  the  security  of  Normandy  was  requisite  to  the  success 
of  these  wider  plans,  and  Eichard  saw  that  its  defence  could 
no  longer  rest  on  the  loyalty  of  the  Norman  people.  His 
father  might  trace  his  descent  through  Matilda  from  the  line 
of  Eolf,  but  the  Angevin  ruler  was  in  fact  a  stranger  to  the 
Norman.  It  was  impossible  for  a  Norman  to  recognize 
his  Duke  with  any  real  sympathy  in  the  Angevin  prince 
whom  he  saw  moving  along  the  border  at  the  head  of 
Brabanc.on  mercenaries,  in  whose  camp  the  old  names  of 
the  Norman  baronage  were  missing  and  Merchade,  a  Gascon 
ruffian,  held  supreme  command.  The  purely  military  site 
that  Eichard  selected  for  a  new  fortress  with  which  he 
guarded  the  border  showed  his  realization  of  the  fact  that 
Normandy  could  now  only  be  held  by  force  of  arms.  As 
a  monument  of  warlike  skill  his  "Saucy  Castle,"  Chateau 
Gaillard,  stands  first  among  the  fortresses  of  the  middle  ages. 
Eichard  fixed  its  site  where  the  Seine  bends  suddenly  at 
Gaillon  in  a  great  semicircle  to  the  north,  and  .where  the 
valley  of  Les  Andelys  breaks  the  line  of  the  chalk  cliffs 
along  its  banks.  Blue  masses  of  woodland  crown  the 
distant  hills  ;  within  the  river  curve  lies  a  dull  reach 
of  flat  meadow,  round  which  the  Seine,  broken  with 
green  islets  and  dappled  with  the  grey  and  blue  of  the 
sky,  flashes  like  a  silver  bow  on  its  way  to  Eouen.  The 
castle  formed  part  of  an  entrenched  camp  which  Eichard 
designed  to  cover  his  Norman  capital.  Approach  by  the 
river  was  blocked  by  a  stockade  and  a  bridge  of  boats, 
by  a  fort  on  the  islet  in  mid  stream,  and  by  a  tower 
which  the  King  built  in  the  valley  of  the  Gambon, 
then  an  impassable  marsh.  In  the  angle  between  this 
valley  and  the  Seine,  on  a  spur  of  the  chalk  hills  which 
only  a  narrow  neck  of  land  connects  with  the  general 


1«8  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP  IV.  plateau,  rose  at  the  height  of  three  hundred  feet  above  the 

^T"        river  the  crowning  fortress  of  the  whole.    Its  outworks  and 

Angevin    £jie  walls  which  connected  it  with  the  town  and  stockade 

ii89-  nave  f°r  ^e  mos^  Par^  oone>  Dut  time  and  the  hand  of  man 
1204.  have  done  little  to  destroy  the  fortifications  themselves — 
the  fosse,  hewn  deep  into  the  solid  rock,  with  casemates 
hollowed  out  along  its  sides,  the  fluted  walls  of  the  citadel, 
the  huge  donjon  looking  down  on  the  brown  roofs  and 
huddled  gables  of  Les  Andelys.  Even  now  in  its  ruin 
we  can  understand  the  triumphant  outburst  of  its  royal 
builder  as  he  saw  it  rising  against  the  sky  :  "  How  pretty 
a  child  is  mine,  this  child  of  but  one  year  old ! " 
Richard's  The  easy  reduction  of  Normandy  on  the  fall  of  Chateau 
death.  Qaillard  at  a  later  time  proved  Eichard's  foresight ;  but 
foresight  and  sagacity  were  mingled  in  him  with  a  brutal 
violence  and  a  callous  indifference  to  honour.  "I  would  take 
it,  were  its  walls  of  iron,"  Philip  exclaimed  in  wrath  as  he 
saw  the  fortress  rise.  "  I  would  hold  it,  were  its  walls  of 
butter,"  was  the  defiant  answer  of  his  foe.  It  was  Church 
land  and  the  Archbishop  of  Rouen  laid  Normandy  under 
interdict  at  its  seizure,  but  the  King  met  the  interdict  with 
mockery,  and  intrigued  with  Rome  till  the  censure  was 
withdrawn.  He  was  just  as  defiant  of  a  "  rain  of  blood," 
whose  fall  scared  his  courtiers.  "  Had  an  angel  from 
heaven  bid  him  abandon  his  work,"  says  a  cool  observer, 
"he  would  have  answered  with  a  curse."  The  twelve- 
month's hard  work,  in  fact,  by  securing  the  Norman 
frontier  set  Richard  free  to  deal  his  long-planned  blow  at 
Philip.  Money  only  was  wanting;  for  England  had  at 
last  struck  against  the  continued  exactions.  In  1198 
Hugh,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  brought  nobles  and  bishops  to 
refuse  a  new  demand  for  the  maintenance  of  foreign 
soldiers,  and  Hubert  Walter  resigned  in  despair.  A  new 
justiciar,  Geoffry  Fitz-Peter,  Earl  of  Essex,  extorted  some 
money  by  a  harsh  assize  of  the  forests ;  but  the  exchequer 
was  soon  drained,  and  Richard  listened  with  more  than 
the  greed  of  his  race  to  rumours  that  a  treasure  had  been 


II.]    ENGLAND  UNDER  FOREIGN  KINGS.     1071—1214.  189 

found  in  the  fields  of  the  Limousin.     Twelve  knights  of  CHAP.  IV 
gold  seated  round  a  golden  table  were  the  find,  it  was  said, 

o  ADC 

of  the  Lord  of  Chaluz.     Treasure-trove  at  anv  rate  there     4sgevin 

Jungs. 

was,  and  in  the  spring  of  1199  Eichard  prowled  around      1^9_ 
the  walls.    But  the  castle  held  stubbornly  out  till  the  King's      iao4- 
greed  passed  into  savage  menace.     He  would  hang  all,  he 
swore — man,  woman,  the  very  child  at  the  breast.     In  the 
midst  of  his  threats  an  arrow  from  the  walls  struck  him 
down.     He  died  as  he  had  lived,  owning  the  wild  passion 
which  for  seven  years  past  had  kept  him  from  confession 
lest  he  should  be  forced  to  pardon  Philip,  forgiving  with 
kingly  generosity  the  archer  who  had  shot  him. 

The  Angevin  dominion  broke  to  pieces  at  his  death.  Loss  of 
John  was  acknowledged  as  King  in  England  and  Normandy,  •^or~ 
Aquitaine  was  secured  for  him  by  its  Duchess,  his  mother 
Eleanor ;  but  Anjou,  Maine,  and  Touraine  did  homage  to 
Arthur,  the  son  of  his  elder  brother  Geoffry,  the  late 
Duke  of  Britanny.  The  ambition  of  Philip,  who  protected 
his  cause,  turned  the  day  against  Arthur;  the  Angevins 
rose  against  the  French  garrisons  with  which  the  French 
King  practically  annexed  the  country,  and  in  May  1200 
a  treaty  between  the  two  kings  left  John  master  of  the 
whole  dominion  of  his  house.  But  fresh  troubles  broke 
out  in  Poitou ;  Philip,  on  John's  refusal  to  answer  the 
charges  of  the  Poitevin  barons  at  his  Court,  declared  in 
1202  his  fiefs  forfeited;  and  Arthur,  now  a  boy  of  fifteen, 
strove  to  seize  Eleanor  in  the  castle  of  Mirabeau. 
Surprized  at  its  siege  by  a  rapid  inarch  of  the  King,  the 
boy  was  taken  prisoner  to  Eouen,  and  murdered  there  in 
the  spring  of  1203,  as  men  believed,  by  his  uncle's  hand. 
This  brutal  outrage  at  once  roused  the  French  provinces 
in  revolt,  while  Philip  sentenced  John  to  forfeiture  as  a 
murderer  and  marched  straight  on  Normandy.  The  ease 
with  which  the  conquest  of  the  Duchy  was  effected  can 
only  be  explained  by  the  utter  absence  of  any  popular 
resistance  on  the  part  of  the  Normans  themselves.  Half 
a  century  before  the  sight  of  a  Frenchman  in  the  land 


190  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  [BOOK  n. 

CHAP.  IV.  would  have  roused  every  peasant  to  arms  from  Avranches 
^  to  Dieppe.  But  town  after  town  surrendered  at  the 
^ngs!n  mere  summons  of  Philip,  and  the  conquest  was  hardly 
lisa-  over  before  Normandy  settled  down  into  the  most  loyal 
1204'  of  the  provinces  of  France.  Much  of  this  was  due  to 
the  wise  liberality  with  which  Philip  met  the  claims  of 
the  towns  to  independence  and  self-government,  as  well 
as  to  the  overpowering  force  and  military  ability  with 
which  the  conquest  was  effected.  But  the  utter  absence 
of  opposition  sprang  from  a  deeper  cause.  To  the  Norman 
his  transfer  from  John  to  Philip  was  a  mere  passing 
from  one  foreign  master  to  another,  and  foreigner  for 
foreigner  Philip  was  the  less  alien  of  the  two.  Between 
France  and  Normandy  there  had  been  as  many  years  of 
friendship  as  of  strife ;  between  Norman  and  Angevin 
lay  a  century  of  bitterest  hate.  Moreover,  the  subjection 
to  France  was  the  realization  in  fact  of  a  dependence 
which  had  always  existed  in  theory ;  Philip  entered  Rouen 
as  the  over-lord  of  its  Dukes;  while  the  submission  to 
the  house  of  Anjou  had  been  the  most  humiliating  of  all 
submissions,  the  submission  to  an  equal.  In  1204  Philip 
turned  on  the  south  with  as  startling  a  success.  Maine, 
Anjou,  and  Touraine  passed  with  little  resistance  into 
his  hands,  and  the  death  of  Eleanor  was  followed  by  the 
submission  of  the  bulk  of  Aquitaine.  Little  was  left 
save  the  country  south  of  the  Garonne ;  and  from  the 
lordship  of  a  vast  empire  that  stretched  from  the  Tyne 
to  the  Pyrenees  John  saw  himself  reduced  at  a  blow  to 
the  realm  of  England. 


BOOK   III. 

THE    CHARTER. 
1204—1291. 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  BOOK  III. 

1204—1291. 


A  chronicle  drawn  up  at  the  monastery  of  Barnwell  near  Cain- 
bridge,  and  which  has  been  embodied  in  the  "  Memoriale  "  of  Walter 
of  Coventry,  gives  us  a  contemporary  account  of  the  period  from  1201 
to  1225.  We  possess  another  contemporary  annalist  for  the  same 
period  in  Roger  of  Wendover,  the  first  of  the  published  chroniclers 
of  St.  Albans,  whose  work  extends  to  1235.  Though  full  of  detail 
Roger  is  inaccurate,  and  he  has  strong  royal  and  ecclesiastical  sym- 
pathies ;  but  his  chronicle  was  subsequently  revised  in  a  more  patriotic 
sense  by  another  monk  of  the  same  abbey,  Matthew  Paris,  and  continued 
in  the  "  Greater  Chronicle  "  of  the  latter. 

Matthew  has  left  a  parallel  but  shorter  account  of  the  time  in  his 
"Historia  Anglorum  "  (from  the  Conquest  to  1253).  He  is  the  last  of 
the  great  chroniclers  of  his  house  ;  for  the  chronicles  of  Rishanger, 
his  successor  at  St.  Albans,  and  of  the  obscurer  annalists  who  worked 
on  at  that  Abbey  till  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  are  little  save  scant  and 
lifeless  jottings  of  events  which  become  more  and  more  local  as  time 
goes  on.  The  annals  of  the  abbeys  of  Waverley,  Dunstable,  and  Burton, 
which  have  been  published  in  the  "  Annales  Monastici "  of  the  Rolls 
series,  add  important  details  for  the  reigns  of  John  and  Henry  III. 
Those  of  Melrose,  Osney,  and  Lanercost  help  us  in  the  close  of  the 
latter  reign,  where  help  is  especially  welcome.  For  the  Barons'  war  we 
have  besides  these  the  royalist  chronicle  of  Wykes,  Rishanger's  fragment 
published  by  the  Camden  Society,  and  a  chronicle  of  Bartholomew  de 
Cotton,  which  is  contemporary  from  1264  to  1298.  Where  the  chronicles 
fail  however  the  public  documents  of  the  realm  become  of  high  im- 
portance. The  "  Royal  Letters"  (1216—1272)  which  have  been  printed 
from  the  Patent  Rolls  by  Professor  Shirley  (Rolls  Series)  throw  great 
light  on  Henry's  politics. 

Our  municipal  history  during  this  period  is  fully  represented  by  that 
of  London.  For  the  general  history  of  the  capital  the  Rolls  series  has 
given  us  its  "  Liber  Albus  "  and  "  Liber  Custumarum,"  while  a  vivid 
account  of  its  communal  revolution  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  Liber  de 
Antiquis  Legibus"  published  by  the  Camden  Society.  A  store  of 
documents  will  be  found  in  the  Charter  Rolls  published  by  the  Record 
Commission,  in  Brady's  work  on  "  English  Boroughs,"  and  ip  the 


194  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

"  Ordinances  of  English  Gilds,"  published  with  a  remarkable  preface 
from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Brentano  by  the  Early  English  Text  Society. 
For  our  religious  and  intellectual  history  materials  now  become 
abundant.  Grosseteste's  Letters  throw  light  on  the  state  of  the 
Church  and  its  relations  with  Rome  ;  those  of  Adam  Marsh  give  us 
interesting  details  of  Earl  Simon's  relation  to  the  religious  move- 
ment of  his  day  ;  and  Eccleston's  tract  on  the  arrival  of  the  Friars 
is  embodied  in  the  "  Monumenta  Franciscana."  For  the  Univer- 
sities we  have  the  collection  of  materials  edited  by  Mr .  Anstey  under 
the  name  of  "  Munimenta  Academica." 

With  the  close  of  Henry's  reign  our  directly  historic  materials 
become  scantier  and  scantier.  The  monastic  annals  we  have  before 
mentioned  are  supplemented  by  the  jejune  entries  of  Trivet  and 
Murimuth,  by  the  "  Annales  AngliaB  et  Scotia3,"  by  Rishanger's 
Chronicle,  his  "  Gesta  Edwardi  Primi,"  and  three  fragments  of  his 
annals  (all  published  in  the  Rolls  Series).  The  portion  of  the  so-called 
"  Walsingham's  History  "  which  relates  to  this  period  is  now  attributed 
by  Mr.  Riley  to  Rishanger's  hand.  For  the  wars  in  the  north  and  in 
the  west  we  have  no  records  from  the  side  of  the  conquered.  The 
social  and  physical  state  of  Wales  indeed  is  illustrated  by  the  "  Itin- 
erarium "  which  Gerald  du  Barri  drew  up  in  the  twelfth  century,  but 
Scotland  has  no  contemporary  chronicles  for  this  period  ;  the  jingling 
rimes  of  Blind  Harry  are  two  hundred  years  later  than  his  hero, 
Wallace.  We  possess  however  a  copious  collection  of  State  papers  in 
the  "  Rotuli  Scotia?,"  the  "  Documents  and  Records  illustrative  of  the 
History  of  Scotland  "  which  were  edited  by  Sir  F.  Palgrave,  as  well 
as  in  Rymer's  Foedera.  For  the  history  of  our  Parliament  the  most 
noteworthy  materials  have  been  collected  by  Professor  Stubbs  in 
his  Select  Charters,  and  he  has  added  to  them  a  short  treatise 
called  "  Modus  Tenendi  Parliamenta,"  which  may  be  taken  as  a  fair 
account  of  its  actual  state  and  powers  in  the  fourteenth  century. 


CHAPTER  I. 


JOHN. 
121-1—1216. 

THE  loss  of  Normandy  did  more  than  drive  John  from  the 
foreign  dominions  of  his  race ;  it  set  him  face  to  face  with 
England  itself.  England  was  no  longer  a  distant  treasure- 
house  from  which  gold  could  be  drawn  for  wars  along  the 
Epte  or  the  Loire,  no  longer  a  possession  to  be  kept  in 
order  by  wise  ministers  and  by  flying  visits  from  its  foreign 
King.  Henceforth  it  was  his  home.  It  was  to  be  ruled  by 
his  personal  and  continuous  rule.  People  and  sovereign 
were  to  know  each  other,  to  be  brought  into  contact  with 
each  other  as  they  had  never  been  brought  since  the  con- 
quest of  the  Norman.  The  change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
king  was  the  more  momentous  that  it  took  place  at  a 
time  when  the  attitude  of  the  country  itself  was  rapidly 
changing.  The  Norman  Conquest  had  given  a  new  aspect 
to  the  land.  A  foreign  king  ruled  it  through  foreign 
ministers.  Foreign  nobles  were  quartered  in  every  manor. 
A  military  organization  of  the  country  changed  while  it 
simplified  the  holding  of  every  estate.  Huge  castles  of 
white  stone  bridled  town  and  country ;  huge  stone  minsters 
told  how  the  Norman  had  bridled  even  the  Church.  But 
the  change  was  in  great  measure  an  external  one.  The 
real  life  of  the  nation  was  little  affected  by  the  shock  of 
the  Conquest.  English  institutions,  the  local,  judicial, 
and  administrative  forms  of  the  country  were  the  same  as 
of  old.  Like  the  English  tongue  they  remained  practically 


England 
and  the 
Conquest. 


196  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  unaltered.  For  a  century  after  the  Conquest  only  a 
j^hn  few  new  words  crept  in  from  the  language  of  the  con- 
1214-  querors,  and  so  entirely  did  the  spoken  tongue  of  the 
1^i6'  nation  at  large  remain  unchanged  that  William  himself 
tried  to  learn  it  that  he  might  administer  justice  to  his 
subjects.  Even  English  literature,  banished  as  it  was  from 
the  court  of  the  stranger  and  exposed  to  the  fashionable 
rivalry  of  Latin  scholars,  survived  not  only  in  religious 
works,  in  poetic  paraphrases  of  gospels  and  psalms,  but  in 
the  great  monument  of  our  prose,  the  English  Chronicle. 
It  was  not  till  the  miserable  reign  of  Stephen  that  the 
Chronicle  died  out  in  the  Abbey  of  Peterborough.  But 
the  "  Sayings  of  Alfred  "  show  a  native  literature  going 
on  through  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Second,  and  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  great  work  of  English  verse  coincides  in 
point  of  time  with  the  return  of  John  to  his  island  realm. 
"There  was  a  priest  in  the  land  whose  name  was  Laya- 
mon;  he  was  the  son  of  Leovenath;  may  the  Lord  be 
gracious  to  him !  He  dwelt  at  Earnley,  a  noble  church  on 
the  bank  of  Severn  (good  it  seemed  to  him !)  near  Rad- 
stone,  where  he  read  books.  It  came  to  mind  to  him  and 
in  his  chiefest  thought  that  he  would  tell  the  noble  deeds 
of  England,  what  the  men  were  named  and  whence  they 
came  who  first  had  English  land."  Journeying  far  and 
wide  over  the  country,  the  priest  of  Earnley  found  Ba?da 
and  Wace,  the  books  too  of  St.  Albin  and  St.  Austin, 
"  Layamon  laid  down  these  books  and  turned  the  leaves  ; 
he  beheld  them  lovingly ;  may  the  Lord  be  gracious  to  him  ! 
Pen  he  took  with  finger  and  wrote  a  book-skin,  and  the 
true  words  set  together,  and  compressed  the  three  books 
into  one."  Layamon's  church  is  now  that  of  Areley,  near 
Bewdley  in  Worcestershire ;  his  poem  was  in  fact  an 
expansion  of  Wace's  "  Brut "  with  insertions  from  Bseda. 
Historically  it  is  worthless ;  but  as  a  monument  of 
our  language  it  is  beyond  all  price.  In  more  than  thirty 
thousand  lines  not  more  than  fifty  Norman  words  are  to 
be  found.  Even  the  old  poetic  tradition  remains  the 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  197 

same.     The  alliterative  metre  of  the  earlier  verse  is  still     CHAP.  I. 
only  slightly  affected  by  riming  terminations ;  the  similes       j^ 
are  the  few  natural  similes  of  Coedmon ;  the  battle-scenes     IZIA- 
are  painted  with  the  same  rough,  simple  joy.  1216. 

Instead  of  crushing  England  indeed  the  Conquest  did  English 
more  than  any  event  that  had  gone  before  to  build  up  an  a^oi 
English  people.  All  local  distinctions,  the  distinction  of 
Saxon  from  Mercian,  of  both  from  Northumbrian,  died 
away  beneath  the  common  pressure  of  the  stranger.  The 
Conquest  was  hardly  over  when  we  see  the  rise  of  a  new 
national  feeling,  of  a  new  patriotism.  In  his  quiet  cell 
at  Worcester  the  monk  Florence  strives  to  palliate  by 
excuses  of  treason  or  the  weakness  of  rulers  the  defeats 
of  Englishmen  by  the  Danes.  Alfred,  the  great  name  of 
the  English  past,  gathers  round  him  a  legendary  worship, 
and  the  "  Sayings  of  ^Elfred  "  embody  the  ideal  of  an 
English  king.  We  see  the  new  vigour  drawn  from  this 
deeper  consciousness  of  national  unity  in  a  national  action 
which  began  as  soon  as  the  Conquest  had  given  place  to 
strife  among  the  conquerors.  A  common  hostility  to  the 
conquering  baronage  gave  the  nation  leaders  in  its  foreign 
sovereigns,  and  the  sword  which  had  been  sheathed  at 
Senlac  was  drawn  for  triumphs  which  avenged  it.  It  was 
under  William  the  Red  that  English  soldiers  shouted  scorn 
at  the  Norman  barons  who  surrendered  at  Eochester.  It 
was  under  Henry  the  First  that  an  English  army  faced 
Duke  Robert  and  his  foreign  knighthood  when  they  landed 
for  a  fresh  invasion,  "  not  fearing  the  Normans."  It  was 
under  the  same  great  King  that  Englishmen  conquered 
Normandy  in  turn  on  the  field  of  Tenchebray.  This  over- 
throw of  the  conquering  baronage,  this  union  of  the  con- 
quered with  the  King,  brought  about  the  fusion  of  the 
conquerors  in  the  general  body  of  the  English  people.  As 
early  as  the  days  of  Henry  the  Second  the  descendants 
of  Norman  and  Englishman  had  become  indistinguishable. 
Both  found  a  bond  in  a  common  English  feeling  and  English 
patriotism,  in  a  common  hatred  of  the  Angevin  and  Poitevin 

VOL.  I.— 14 


198 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214- 
1216. 


The  Uni- 
versities. 


"  foreigners  "  who  streamed  into  England  in  the  wake  of 
Henry  and  his  sons.  Both  had  profited  by  the  stern 
discipline  of  the  Norman  rule.  The  wretched  reign  of 
Stephen  alone  broke  the  long  peace,  a  peace  without 
parallel  elsewhere,  which  in  England  stretched  from  the 
settlement  of  the  Conquest  to  the  return  of  John.  Of  her 
kings'  forays  along  Norman  or  Aquitanian  borders  England 
heard  little  ;  she  cared  less.  Even  Kichard's  crusade  woke 
little  interest  in  his  island  realm.  What  England  saw  in 
her  Kings  was  "  the  good  peace  they  made  in  the  land." 
And  with  peace  came  a  stern  but  equitable  rule,  judicial 
and  administrative  reforms  that  carried  order  and  justice 
to  every  corner  of  the  land,  a  wealth  that  grew  steadily 
in  spite  of  heavy  taxation,  an  immense  outburst  of  material 
and  intellectual  activity. 

It  was  with  a  new  English  peop]e  therefore  that  John 
found  himself  face  to  face.  The  nation  which  he  fronted 
was  a  nation  quickened  with  a  new  life  and  throbbing  with 
a  new  energy.  Not  least  among  the  signs  of  this  energy 
was  the  upgrowth  of  our  Universities.  The  establishment 
of  the  great  schools  which  bore  this  name  was  everywhere 
throughout  Europe  a  special  mark  of  the  impulse  which 
Christendom  gained  from  the  crusades.  A  new  fervour 
of  study  sprang  up  in  the  West  from  its  contact  with  the 
more  cultured  East.  Travellers  like  Adelard  of  Bath 
brought  back  the  first  rudiments  of  physical  and  mathe- 
matical science  from  the  schools  of  Cordova  or  Bagdad. 
In  the  twelfth  century  a  classical  revival  restored  Caesar 
and  Vergil  to  the  list  of  monastic  studies,  and  left  its  stamp 
on  the  pedantic  style,  the  profuse  classical  quotations  of 
writers  like  William  of  Malmesbury  or  John  of  Salisbury. 
The  scholastic  philosophy  sprang  up  in  the  schools  of  Paris. 
The  Roman  law  was  revived  by  the  imperialist  doctors  of 
Bologna.  The  long  mental  inactivity  of  feudal  Europe 
broke  up  like  ice  before  a  summer's  sun.  Wandering 
teachers  such  as  Lanfranc  or  Anselm  crossed  sea  and  land 
to  spread  the  new  power  of  knowledge.  The  same  spirit 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


of  restlessness,  of  enquiry,  of  impatience  with  the  older 
traditions  of  mankind  either  local  or  intellectual  that 
drove  half  Christendom  to  the  tomb  of  its  Lord  crowded 
the  roads  with  thousands  of  young  scholars  hurrying  to 
the  chosen  seats  where  teachers  were  gathered  together. 
A  new  power  sprang  up  in  the  midst  of  a  world  which  had 
till  now  recognized  no  power  but  that  of  sheer  brute 
force.  Poor  as  they  were,  sometimes  even  of  servile  race, 
the  wandering  scholars  who  lectured  in  every  cloister 
were  hailed  as  "masters"  by  the  crowds  at  their  feet. 
Abelard  was  a  foe  worthy  of  the  threats  of  councils, 
of  the  thunders  of  the  Church.  The  teaching  of  a  single 
Lombard  was  of  note  enough  in  England  to  draw  down 
the  prohibition  of  a  King. 

Vacarius  was  probably  a  guest  in  the  court  of  Archbishop 
Theobald  where  Thomas  of  London  and  John  of  Salisbury 
were  already  busy  with  the  study  of  the  Civil  Law.  But 
when  he  opened  lectures  on  it  at  Oxford  he  was  at  once 
silenced  by  Stephen,  who  was  at  that  moment  at  war  with 
the  Church  and  jealous  of  the  power  which  the  wreck  of 
the  royal  authority  was  throwing  into  Theobald's  hands. 
At  this  time  Oxford  stood  in  the  first  rank  among 
English  towns.  Its  town  church  of  St.  Martin  rose  from 
the  midst  of  a  huddled  group  of  houses,  girded  in  with 
massive  walls,  that  lay  along  the  dry  upper  ground  of  a 
low  peninsula  between  the  streams  of  Cherwell  and  the 
Thames.  The  ground  fell  gently  011  either  side,  east- 
ward and  westward,  to  these  rivers ;  while  on  the  south  a 
sharper  descent  led  down  across  swampy  meadows  to  the 
ford  from  which  the  town  drew  its  name  and  to  the 
bridge  that  succeeded  it.  Around  lay  a  wild  forest  country, 
moors  such  as  Cowley  and  Bullingdon  fringing  the  course 
of  Thames,  great  woods  of  which  Shotover  and  Bagley  are 
the  relics  closing  the  horizon  to  the  south  and  east.  Though 
the  two  huge  towers  of  its  Norman  castle  marked  the 
strategic  importance  of  Oxford  as  commanding  the  river 
valley  along  which  the  commerce  of  Southern  England 


CHAP.  1. 
John. 
1214- 


Oxford. 


200  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I.  mainly  flowed,  its  walls  formed  the  least  element  in  the 
Joim  town's  military  strength,  for  on  every  side  but  the  north  it 
iai4-  was  guarded  by  the  swampy  meadows  along  Cherwell  of  by 
1216.  an  intricate  network  of  streams  into  which  the  Thames 
breaks  among  the  meadows  of  Osney.  From  the  midst  of 
these  meadows  rose  a  mitred  abbey  of  Austin  Canons  which 
with  the  older  priory  of  St.  Frideswide  gave  Oxford  some 
ecclesiastical  dignity.  The  residence  of  the  Norman  house  of 
the  D'Oillis  within  its  castle,  the  frequent  visits  of  English 
kings  to  a  palace  without  its  walls,  the  presence  again  and 
again  of  important  Parliaments,  marked  its  political  weight 
within  the  realm.  The  settlement  of  one  of  the  wealthiest 
among  the  English  Jewries  in  the  very  heart  of  the  town 
indicated,  while  it  promoted,  the  activity  of  its  trade.  No 
place  better  illustrates  the  transformation  of  the  land  in 
the  hands  of  its  Norman  masters,  the  sudden  outburst  of 
industrial  effort,  the  sudden  expansion  of  commerce  and 
accumulation  of  wealth  which  followed  the  Conquest.  To 
the  west  of  the  town  rose  one  of  the  stateliest  of  English 
castles,  and  in  the  meadows  beneath  the  hardly  less  stately 
abbey  of  Osney.  In  the  fields  to  the  north  the  last  of 
the  Norman  kings  raised  his  palace  of  Beaumont.  In  the 
southern  quarter  of  the  city  the  canons  of  St.  Frideswide 
reared  the  church  which  still  exists  as  the  diocesan  cathe- 
dral, while  the  piety  of  the  Norman  Castellans  rebuilt 
almost  all  its  parish  churches  and  founded  within  their 
new  castle  walls  the  church  of  the  Canons  of  St.  George. 
Oxford  We  know  nothing  of  the  causes  which  drew  students 
Scholars.  an(j  teachers  within  the  walls  of  Oxford.  It  is  possible 
that  here  as  elsewhere  a  new  teacher  quickened  older 
educational  foundations,  and  that  the  cloisters  of  Osney 
and  St.  Frideswide  already  possessed  schools  which  burst 
into  a  larger  life  under  the  impulse  of  Vacarius.  As  yet 
however  the  fortunes  of  the  University  were  obscured  by 
the  glories  of  Paris.  English  scholars  gathered  in  thousands 
round  the  chairs  of  William  of  Champeaux  or  Abelard. 
The  English  took  their  place  as  one  of  the  "  nations  "  of 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


201 


the  French  University.  John  of  Salisbury  became  famous 
as  one  of  the  Parisian  teachers.  Thomas  of  London  wan- 
dered to  Paris  from  his  school  at  Merton.  But  through 
the  peaceful  reign  of  Henry  the  Second  Oxford  quietly 
grew  in  numbers  and  repute,  and  forty  years  after  the  visit 
of  Vacarius  its  educational  position  was  fully  established. 
When  Gerald  of  Wales  read  his  amusing  Topography  of 
Ireland  to  its  students  the  most  learned  and  famous  of 
the  English  clergy  were  to  be  found  within  its  walls. 
At  the  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century  Oxford  stood 
without  a  rival  in  its  own  country  while  in  European 
celebrity  it  took  rank  with  the  greatest  schools  of  the 
Western  world.  But  to  realize  this  Oxford  of  the  past  we 
must  dismiss  from  our  minds  all  recollections  of  the  Oxford 
of  the  present.  In  the  outer  look  of  the  new  Universit^y 
there  was  nothing  of  the  pomp  that  overawes  the  freshman 
as  he  first  paces  the  "  High "  or  looks  down  from  the 
gallery  of  St.  Mary's.  In  the  stead  of  long  fronts  of 
venerable  colleges,  of  stately  walks  beneath  immemorial 
elms,  history  plunges  us  into  the  mean  and  filthy  lanes  of 
a  mediaeval  town.  Thousands  of  boys,  huddled  in  bare 
lodging-houses,  clustering  round  teachers  as  poor  as  them- 
selves in  church  porch  and  house  porch,  drinking,  quarrel- 
ling, dicing,  begging  at  the  corners  of  the  streets,  take  the 
place  of  the  brightly-coloured  train  of  doctors  and  Heads. 
Mayor  and  Chancellor  struggled  in  vain  to  enforce  order 
or  peace  on  this  seething  mass  of  turbulent  life.  The 
retainers  who  followed  their  young  lords  to  the  University 
fought  out  the  feuds  of  their  houses  in  the  streets.  Scholars 
from  Kent  and  scholars  from  Scotland  waged  the  bitter 
struggle  of  North  and  South.  At  nightfall  roysterer  and 
reveller  roamed  with  torches  through  the  narrow  lanes, 
defying  bailiffs,  and  cutting  down  burghers  at  their  doors. 
Now  a  mob  of  clerks  plunged  into  the  Jewry  and  wiped 
off  the  memory  of  bills  and  bonds  by  sacking  a  Hebrew 
house  or  two.  Now  a  tavern  squabble  between  scholar  and 
townsman  widened  into  a  general  broil,  and  the  academical 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


202 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 


Edmund 
Rich. 


bell  of  St.  Mary's  vied  with  the  town  bell  of  St.  Martin's 
in  clanging  to  arms.  Every  phase  of  ecclesiastical  con- 
troversy or  political  strife  was  preluded  by  some  fierce 
outbreak  in  this  turbulent,  surging  mob.  When  England 
growled  at  the  exactions  of  the  Papacy  in  the  years  that 
were  to  follow  the  students  besieged  a  legate  in  the  abbot's 
house  at  Osney.  A  murderous  town  and  gown  row  pre- 
ceded the  opening  of  the  Barons'  War.  "  When  Oxford 
draws  knife,"  ran  an  old  rime,  "  England's  soon  at  strife." 

But  the  turbulence  and  stir  was  a  stir  and  turbulence  of 
life.  A  keen  thirst  for  knowledge,  a  passionate  poetry  of 
devotion,  gathered  thousands  round  the  poorest  scholar 
and  welcomed  the  barefoot  friar.  Edmund  Rich — Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  and  saint  in  later  days — came  about 
the  time  we  have  reached  to  Oxfprd,  a  boy  of  twelve  years 
old,  from  a  little  lane  at  Abingdon  that  still  bears  his 
name.  He  found  his  scbool  in  an  inn  that  belonged  to 
the  abbey  of  Eynsham  where  his  father  had  taken  refuge 
jrom  the  world.  His  mother  was  a  pious  woman  of  the 
day,  too  poor  to  give  her  boy  much  outfit  besides  the  hair 
shirt  that  he  promised  to  wear  every  Wednesday  ;  but 
Edmund  was  no  poorer  than  his  neighbours.  He  plunged 
at  once  into  the  nobler  life  of  the  place,  its  ardour  for 
knowledge,  its  mystical  piety.  "  Secretly,"  perhaps  at 
eventide  when  the  shadows  were  gathering  in  the  church 
of  St.  Mary  and  the  crowd  of  teachers  and  students  had 
left  its  aisles,  the  boy  stood  before  an  image  of  the  Virgin, 
and  placing  a  ring  of  gold  upon  its  finger  took  Mary  lor 
his  bride.  Years  of  study,  broken  by  a  fever  that  raged 
among  the  crowded,  noisome  streets,  brought  the  time  for 
completing  his  education  at  Paris ;  and  Edmund,  hand  in 
hand  with  a  brother  Eobert  of  his,  begged  his  way  as  poor 
scholars  were  wont  to  the  great  school  of  Western  Christen- 
dom. He.re  a  damsel,  heedless  of  his  tonsure,  wooed  him 
so  pertinaciously  that  Edmund  consented  at  last  to  an 
assignation ;  but  when  he  appeared  it  was  in  company  of 
grave  academical  officials  who,  as  the  maiden  declared  in 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


203 


the  hour  of  penitence  which  followed,  "straightway  whipped 
the  offending  Eve  out  of  her."  Still  true  to  his  Virgin 
bridal,  Edmund  on  his  return  from  Paris  became  the  most 
popular  of  Oxford  teachers.  It  is  to  him  that  Oxford  owes 
her  first  introduction  to  the  Logic  of  Aristotle.  We  see 
him  in  the  little  room  which  he  hired,  with  the  Virgin's 
chapel  hard  by,  his  grey  gown  reaching  to  his  feet,  ascetic 
in  his  devotion,  falling  asleep  in  lecture  time  after  a  sleep- 
less night  of  prayer,  but  gifted  with  a  grace  and  cheerful- 
ness of  manner  which  told  of  his  French  training  and  a 
chivalrous  love  of  knowledge  that  let  his  pupils  pay  what 
they  would.  "  Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust;'  the  young 
tutor  would  say,  a  touch  of  scholarly  pride  perhaps  min- 
gling with  his  contempt  of  worldly  things,  as  he  threw 
down  the  fee  on  the  dusty  window-ledge  whence  a  thievish 
student  would  sometimes  run  off  with  it.  But  even  know- 
ledge brought  its  troubles  ;  the  Old  Testament,  which  with 
u  copy  of  the  Decretals  long  formed  his  sole  library,  frowned 
down  upon  a  love  of  secular  learning  from  which  Edmund 
found  it  hard  to  wean  himself.  At  last,  in  some  hour  of 
dream,  the  form  of  his  dead  mother  floated  into  the  room 
where  the  teacher  stood  among  his  mathematical  diagrams. 
"  What  are  these  ?  "  she  seemed  to  say  ;  and  seizing  Ed- 
mund's right  hand,  she  drew  on  the  palm  three  circles 
interlaced,  each  of  which  bore  the  name  of  a  Person  of 
the  Christian  Trinity.  "  Be  these,"  she  cried,  as  the  figure 
faded  away,  "  thy  diagrams  henceforth,  my  son." 

The  story  admirably  illustrates  the  real  character  of  the 
new  training,  and  the  latent  opposition  between  the  spirit 
of  the  Universities  and  the  spirit  of  the  Church.  The 
feudal  and  ecclesiastical  order  of  the  old  mediaeval  world 
were  both  alike  threatened  by  this  power  that  had  so 
strangely  sprung  up  in  the  midst  of  them.  Feudalism 
rested  on  local  isolation,  on  the  severance  of  kingdom  from 
kingdom  and  barony  from  barony,  on  the  distinction  of 
blood  and  race,  on  the  supremacy  of  material  or  brute 
force,  on  an  allegiance  determined  by  accidents  of  place 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214- 
1216. 


The 
Univer- 
sity and 
Feudal- 
ism. 


204  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  and  social  position.  The  University  on  the  other  hand 
John  was  a  protest  against  this  isolation  of  man  from  man.  The 
1214-  smallest  school  was  European  and  not  local.  Not  merely 
iai6-  every  province  of  France,  but  every  people  of  Christendom 
had  its  place  among  the  "  nations  "  of  Paris  or  Padua.  A 
common  language,  the  Latin  tongue,  superseded  within 
academical  bounds  the  warring  tongues  of  Europe.  A 
common  intellectual  kinship  and  rivalry  took  the  place  of 
the  petty  strifes  which  parted  province  from  province  or 
realm  from  realm.  What  Church  and  Empire  had  both 
aimed  at  and  both  failed  in,  the  knitting  of  Christian 
nations  together  into  a  vast  commonwealth,  the  Universi- 
ties for  a  time  actually  did.  Dante  felt  himself  as  little  a 
stranger  in  the  "  Latin"  quarter  round  Mont  St.  Genevieve 
as  under  the  arches  of  Bologna.  Wandering  Oxford 
scholars  carried  the  writings  of  Wyclif  to  the  libraries  of 
Prague.  In  England  the  work  of  provincial  fusion  was 
less  difficult  or  important  than  elsewhere,  but  even  in 
England  work  had  to  be  done.  The  feuds  of  Northerner 
and  Southerner  which  so  long  disturbed  the  discipline  of 
Oxford  witnessed  at  any  rate  to  the  fact  that  Northerner 
and  Southerner  had  at  last  been  brought  face  to  face  in  its 
streets.  And  here  as  elsewhere  the  spirit  of  national  isola- 
tion was  held  in  check  by  the  larger  comprehensiveness  of 
the  -University.  After  the  dissensions  that  threatened  the 
prosperity  of  Paris  in  the  thirteenth  .century  Norman  and 
Gascon  mingled  with  Englishmen  in  Oxford  lecture-halls. 
Irish  scholars  were  foremost  in  the  fray  with  the  legate. 
At  a  later  time  the  rising  of  Owen  Glyndwr  found 
hundreds  of  Welshmen  gathered  round  its  teachers.  And 
within  this  strangely  mingled  mass  society  and  govern- 
ment rested  on  a  purely  democratic  basis.  Among  Oxford 
scholars  the  son  of  the  noble  stood  on  precisely  the 
same  footing  with  the  poorest  mendicant.  Wealth,  phy- 
sical strength,  skill  in  arms,  pride  of  ancestry  and  blood, 
the  very  grounds  on  which  feudal  society  rested,  went  for 
nothing  in  the  lecture-room.  The  University  was  a  state 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


205 


absolutely  self-governed,  and  whose  citizens  were  admitted 
by  a  purely  intellectual  franchise.  Knowledge  made  the 
"  master."  To  know  more  than  one's  fellows  was  a  man's 
sole  claim  to  be  a  regent  or  "  ruler  "  in  the  schools.  And 
within  this  intellectual  aristocracy  all  were  equal.  When 
the  free  commonwealth  of  the  masters  gathered  in  the  aisles 
of  St.  Mary's  all  had  an  equal  right  to  counsel,  all  had  an 
equal  vote  in  the  final  decision.  Treasury  and  library  were 
at  their  complete  disposal.  It  was  their  voice  that  named 
every  officer,  that  proposed  and  sanctioned  every  statute. 
Even  the  Chancellor,  their  head,  who  had  at  first  been  an 
officer  of  the  Bishop,  became  an  elected  officer  of  their  own. 
If  the  democratic  spirit  of  the  Universities  threatened 
feudalism,  their  spirit  of  intellectual  enquiry  threatened 
the  Church.  To  all  outer  seeming  they  were  purely  eccle- 
siastical bodies.  The  wide  extension  which  mediaeval 
usage  gave  to  the  word  "orders"  gathered  the  whole 
educated  world  within  the  pale  of  the  clergy.  What- 
ever might  be  their  age  or  proficiency,  scholar  and 
teacher  alike  ranked  as  clerks,  free  from  lay  respon- 
sibilities or  the  control  of  civil  tribunals,  and  ame- 
nable only  to  the  rule  of  the  Bishop  and  the  sentence  of 
his  spiritual  courts.  This  ecclesiastical  character  of  the 
University  appeared  in  that  of  its  head.  The  Chancellor,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  at  first  no  officer  of  the  University  itself, 
but  of  the  ecclesiastical  body  under  whose  shadow  it  had 
sprung  into  life.  At  Oxford  he  was  simply  the  local  officer 
of  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  within  whose  immense  diocese 
the  University  was  then  situated.  But  this  identification 
in  outer  form  with  the  Church  only  rendered  more  con- 
spicuous the  difference  of  spirit  between  them.  The 
sudden  expansion  of  the  field  of  education  diminished  the 
importance  of  those  purely  ecclesiastical  and  theological 
studies  which  had  hitherto  absorbed  the  whole  intellectual 
energies  of  mankind.  The  revival  of  classical  literature, 
the  rediscovery  as  it  were  of  an  older  and  a  greater  world, 
the  contact  with  a  larger,  freer  life  whether  in  mind,  in 


CHAP.  l. 
John. 

1214 

1216. 


The  Urn 
versifies 
and  the 
Church. 


206  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

(.'HAP.  I.  society,  or  in  politics  introduced  a  spirit  of  scepticism,  of 
John  doubt,  of  denial  into  the  realms  of  unquestioning  belief. 
iai4-  Abelard  claimed  for  reason  a  supremacy  over  faith. 
iai6.  Florentine  poets  discussed  with  a  smile  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  Even  to  Dante,  while  he  censures  these,  Vergil 
is  as  sacred  as  Jeremiah.  The  imperial  ruler  in  whom  the 
new  culture  took  its  most  notable  form,  Frederick  the 
Second,  the  "  World's  Wonder  "  of  his  time,  was  regarded 
by  half  Europe  as  no  better  than  an  infidel.  A  faint 
revival  of  physical  science,  so  long  crushed  as  magic  by 
the  dominant  ecclesiasticism,  brought  Christians  into 
perilous  contact  with  the  Moslem  and  the  Jew.  The 
books  of  the  Eabbis  were  no  longer  an  accursed  thing  to 
Eoger  Bacon.  The  scholars  of  Cordova  were  no  mere 
Paynirn  swine  to  Adelard  of  Bath.  How  slowly  indeed  and 
against  what  obstacles  science  won  its  way  we  know  from 
the  witness  of  Eoger  Bacon.  "  Slowly,"  he  tells  us,  "  has 
any  portion  of  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  come  into  use 
among  the  Latins.  His  Natural  Philosophy  and  his 
Metaphysics,  with  the  Commentaries  of  Averroes  and 
others,  were  translated  in  my  time,  and  interdicted  at  Paris 
up  to  the  year  of  grace  1237  because  of  their  assertion 
of  the  eternity  of  the  world  and  of  time  and  because  of 
the  book  of  the  divinations  by  dreams  (which  is  the  third 
book,  De  Somniis  et  Vigiliis)  and  because  of  many  pas- 
sages erroneously  translated.  Even  his  logic  was  slowly 
received  and  lectured  on.  For  St.  Edmund,  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  was  the  first  in  my  time  who  read  the  Ele- 
ments at  Oxford.  And  I  have  seen  Master  Hugo,  who 
first  read  the  book  of  Posterior  Analytics  and  I  have  seen 
his  writing.  So  there  were  but  few,  considering  the  mul- 
titude of  the  Latins,  who  were  of  any  account  in  the  philo- 
sophy of  Aristotle  ;  nay,  very  few  indeed,  and  scarcely  any 
up  to  this  year  of  grace  1292." 

Me  If  we  pass  from  the  English  University  to  the  English 

wn'      Town  we  see  a  progress  as  important  and  hardly  less  inter- 
esting.    In  their  origin  our  boroughs  were  utterly  unlike 


HI.] 


THE  CHAETER.     1204—1291. 


207 


those  of  the  rest  of  the  western  world.  The  cities  of  Italy 
and  Provence  had  preserved  the  municipal  institutions  of 
their  Boman  past ;  the  German  towns  had  been  founded  by 
Henry  the  Fowler  with  the  purpose  of  sheltering  industry 
from  the  feudal  oppression  around  them ;  the  communes 
of  Northern  France  sprang  into  existence  in  revolt  against 
feudal  outrage  within  their  Avails.  But  in  England  the 
tradition  of  Home  passed  utterly  away,  while  feudal 
oppression  was  held  fairly  in  check  by  the  Crown.  The 
English  town  therefore  was  in  its  beginning  simply  a 
piece  of  the  general  country,  organized  and  governed 
precisely  in  the  same  manner  as  the  townships  around  it. 
Its  existence  witnessed  indeed  to  the  need  which  men  felt 
in  those  earlier  times  of  mutual  help  and  protection.  The 
burh  or  borough  was  probably  a  more  defensible  place  than 
the  common  village  ;  it  may  have  had  a  ditch  or  mound 
about  it  instead  of  the  quickset-hedge  or  "  tun  "  from  which 
the  township  took  its  name.  But  in  itself  it  was  simply  a 
township  or  group  of  townships  where  men  clustered 
whether  for  trade  or  defence  move  thickly  than  elsewhere. 
The  towns  were  different  in  the  circumstances  and  date  of 
their  rise.  Some  grew  up  in  the  fortified  camps  of  the 
English  invaders.  Some  dated  from  a  later  occupation  of 
the  sacked  and  desolate  Boman  towns.  Some  clustered 
round  the  country  houses  of  king  and  ealdorman  or  the 
walls  of  church  and  monastery.  Towns  like  Bristol  were 
the  direct  result  of  trade.  There  was  the  same  variety  in  the 
mode  in  which  the  various  town  communities  were  formed. 
While  the  bulk  of  them  grew  by  simple  increase  of  popula- 
tion from  township  to  town,  larger  boroughs  such  as  York 
with  its  "  six  shires  "  or  London  with  its  wards  and  sokes 
and  franchises  show  how  families  and  groups  of  settlers 
settled  down  side  by  side,  and  claimed  as  they  coalesced, 
each  for  itself,  its  shire  or  share  of  the  town-ground  while 
jealously  preserving  its  individual  life  within  the  town- 
community.  But  strange  as  these  aggregations  might  be, 
the  constitution  of  the  boroush  which  resulted  from  them 


CIIAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


208 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP,  I.  was  simply  that  of  the  people  at  large.  Whether  we  regard 
John  it  as  a  township,  or  rather  from  its  size  as  a  hundred  or 
laii-  collection  of  townships,  the  obligations  of  the  dwellers 
Igl6>  within  its  bounds  were  those  of  the  townships  round, 
to  keep  fence  and  trench  in  good  repair,  to  send  a  con- 
tingent to  the  fyrd,  and  a  reeve  and  four  men  to  the  hundred 
court  and  shire  court.  As  in  other  townships  land  was  a 
necessary  accompaniment  of  freedom.  The  landless  man 
who  dwelled  in  a  borough  had  no  share  in  its  corporate 
life ;  for  purposes  of  government  or  property  the  town  con- 
sisted simply  of  the  landed  proprietors  within  its  bounds. 
The  common  lands  which  are  still  attached  to  many  of  our 
boroughs  take  us  back  to  a  time  when  each  township  lay 
within  a  ring  or  mark  of  open  ground  which  served  at  once 
as  boundary  and  pasture  land.  Each  of  the  four  wards  of 
York  had  its  common  pasture;  Oxford  has  still  its  own 
"  Portmeadow." 

The  inner  rulo  of  the  borough  lay  as  in  the  townships 
about  it  in  the  hands  of  its  own  freemen,  gathered  in 
"borough-moot"  or  " portmannimote."  But  the  social 
change  brought  about  by  the  Danish  wars,  the  legal  re- 
quirement that  each  man  should  have  a  lord,  affected  the 
towns  as  it  affected  the  rest  of  the  country.  Some  passed 
into  the  hands  of  great  thegns  near  to  them ;  the  bulk  became 
known  as  in  the  demesne  of  the  king.  A  new  officer,  the 
lord's  or  king's  reeve,  was  a  sign  of  this  revolution.  It  was 
the  reeve  who  now  summoned  the  borough-moot  and 
administered  justice  in  it;  it  was  he  who  collected  the 
lord's  dues  or  annual  rent  of  the  town,  and  who  exacted  the 
services  it  owed  to  its  lord.  To  modern  eyes  these  services 
would  imply  almost  complete  subjection.  When  Leicester, 
for  instance,  passed  from  the  hands  of  the  Conqueror  into 
those  of  its  Earls,  its  townsmen  were  bound  to  reap  their 
lord's  corn-crops,  to  grind  at  his  mill,  to  redeem  their 
strayed  cattle  from  his  pound.  The  great  forest  around 
was  the  Earl's,  and  it  was  only  out  of  his  grace  that  the  little 
borough  could  drive  its  swine  into  the  woods  or  pasture 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


209 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214- 
1216, 


its  cattle  in  the  glades.  The  justice  and  government  of 
a  town  lay  wholly  in  its  master's  hands;  he  appointed 
its  bailiffs,  received  the  fines  and  forfeitures  of  his  tenants, 
and  the  fees  and  tolls  of  their  markets  and  fairs.  But  in 
fact  when  once  these  dues  were  paid  and  these  services 
rendered  the  English  townsman  was  practically  free.  His 
rights  were  as  rigidly  defined  by  custom  as  those  of  his 
lord.  Property  and  person  alike  were  secured  against 
arbitrary  seizure.  He  could  demand  a  fair  trial  on  any 
charge,  and  even  if  justice  was  administered  by  his 
master's  reeve  it  was  administered  in  the  presence  and 
with  the  assent  of  his  fellow-townsmen.  The  bell  which 
swung  out  from  the  town  tower  gathered  the  burgesses  to 
a  common  meeting,  where  they  could  exercize  lights  of 
free  speech  and  free  deliberation  on  their  own  affairs. 
Their  merchant-gild  over  its  ale-feast  regulated  trade,  dis- 
tributed the  sums  due  from  the  town  among  the  different 
burgesses,  looked  to  the  due  repairs  of  gate  and  wall,  and 
acted  in  fact  pretty  much  the  same  part  as  a  town-council 
of  to-day. 

The  merchant-gild  was  the  outcome  of  a  tendency  to 
closer  association  which  found  support  in  those  principles  Merchant 
of  mutual  aid  and  mutual  restraint  that  lay  at  the  base  of 
our  old  institutions.  Gilds  or  clubs  for  religious,  charit- 
able, or  social  purposes  were  common  throughout  the 
country,  and  especially  common  in  boroughs,  where  men 
clustered  more  thickly  together.  Each  formed  a  sort  of 
artificial  family.  An  oath  of  mutual  fidelity  among  its 
members  was  substituted  for  the  tie  of  blood,  while  the 
gild-feast,  held  once  a  month  in  the  common  hall,  replaced 
the  gathering  of  the  kinsfolk  round  their  family  hearth. 
But  within  this  new  family  the  aim  of  the  gild  was  to 
establish  a  mutual  responsibility  as  close  as  that  of  the 
old.  "  Let  all  share  the  same  lot,"  ran  its  law ;  "  if  any 
misdo,  let  all  bear  it."  A  member  could  look  for  aid  from 
his  gild-brothers  in  atoning  for  guilt  incurred  by  mis- 
hap. He  could  call  on-  them  for  assistance  in  case  of 


The 


210  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I.  violence  or  wrong.  If  falsely  accused  they  appeared  in 
John  court  as  his  compurgators,  if  poor  they  supported,  and 
1214-  when  dead  they  buried  him.  On  the  other  hand  he  was 
iai6.  responsible  to  them,  as  they  were  to  the  State,  for  order 
and  obedience  to  the  laws.  A  wrong  of  brother  against 
brother  was  also  a  wrong  against  the  general  body  of  the 
gild  and  was  punished  by  fine  or  in  the  last  resort  by  an 
expulsion  which  left  the  offender  a  "  lawless  "  man  and  an 
outcast.  The  one  difference  between  these  gilds  in  country 
and  town  was  this,  that  in  the  latter  case  from  their  close 
local  neighbourhood  they  tended  inevitably  to  coalesce. 
Under  ^Ethelstan  the  London  gilds  united  into  one  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  out  more  effectually  their  common  aims, 
and  at  a  later  time  we  find  the  gilds  of  Berwick  enacting 
"  that  where  many  bodies  are  found  side  by  side  in  one  place 
they  may  become  one,  and  have  one  will,  and  in  the  dealings 
of  one  with  another  have  a  strong  and  hearty  love."  The 
process  was  probably  a  long  and  difficult  one,  for  the 
brotherhoods  naturally  differed  much  in  social  rank,  and 
even  after  the  union  was  effected  we  see  traces  of  the 
separate  existence  to  a  certain  extent  of  some  one  or  more 
of  the  wealthier  or  more  aristocratic  gilds.  In  London  for 
instance  the  Knighten-gild  which  seems  to  have  stood  at 
the  head  of  its  fellows  retained  for  a  long  time  its  separate 
property,  while  its  Alderman — as 'the  chief  officer  of  each 
gild  was  called — became  the  Alderman  of  the  united  gild  of 
the  whole  city.  In  Canterbury  we  find  a  similar  gild  of 
Thanes  from  which  the  chief  officers  of  the  town  seem  com- 
monly to  have  been  selected.  Imperfect  however  as  the 
union  might  be,  when  once  it  was  effected  the  town  passed 
from  a  mere  collection  of  brotherhoods  into  a  powerful 
community,  far  more  effectually  organized  than  in  the 
loose  organization  of  the  township,  arid  whose  character  was 
inevitably  determined  by  the  circumstances  of  its  origin. 
In  their  beginnings  our  boroughs  seem  to  have  been  mainly 
gatherings  of  persons  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits  ;  the 
first  Dooms  of  London  provide  especially  for  the  recovery 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


211 


of  cattle  belonging  to  the  citizens.  But  as  the  increasing 
security  of  the  country  invited  the  farmer  or  the  landowner 
to  settle  apart  in  his  own  fields,  and  the  growth  of  estate 
and  trade  told  on  the  towns  themselves,  the  difference 
between  town  and  country  became  more  sharply  defined. 
London  of  course  took  the  lead  in  this  new  developement 
of  civic  life.  Even  in  ^thelstan's  day  every  London 
merchant  who  had  made  three  long  voyages  on  his  own 
account  ranked  as  a  Thegn.  Its  "  lithsmen,"  or  shipmanjs- 
gild,  were  of  sufficient  importance  under  Harthacnut  to 
figure  in  the  election  of  a  king,  and  its  principal  street 
still  tells  of  the  rapid  growth  of  trade  in  its  name  of 
'  Cheap- side '  or  the  bargaining  place.  But  at  the  Norman 
Conquest  the  commercial  tendency  had  become  universal. 
The  name  given  to  the  united  brotherhood  in  a  borough 
is  in  almost  every  case  no  longer  that  of  the  '  town-gild,' 
but  of  the  '  merchant-gild.' 

This  social  change  in  the  character  of  the  townsmen 
produced  important  results  in  the  character  of  their 
municipal  institutions.  In  becoming  a  merchant-gild  the 
body  of  citizens  who  formed  the  "  town "  enlarged  their 
powers  of  civic  legislation  by  applying  them  to  the  control 
of  theij  internal  trade.  It  became  their  special  business 
to  obtain  from  the  crown  or  from  their  lords  wider  com- 
mercial privileges,  rights  of  coinage,  grants  of  fairs,  and 
exemption  from  tolls,  while  within  the  town  itself  they 
framed  regulations  as  to  the  sale  and  quality  of  goods,  the 
control  of  markets,  and  the  recovery  of  debts.  It  was  only 
by  slow  and  difficult  advances  that  each  step  in  this 
securing  of  privilege  was  won.  Still  it  went  steadily  on. 
"Whenever  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  inner  history  of  an 
English  town  we  find  the  same  peaceful  revolution  in 
progress,  services  disappearing  through  disuse  or  omission, 
while  privileges  and  immunities  are  being  purchased  in 
hard  cash.  The  lord  of  the  town,  whether  he  were  king, 
baron,  or  abbot,  was  commonly  thriftless  or  poor,  and  the 
capture  of  a  noble,  or  the  campaign  of  a  sovereign,  or  the 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


212  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.    building  of  some  new  minster  by  a  prior,  brought  about  an 

John       appeal  to  the  thrifty  burghers,  who  were  ready  to  fill  again 

1214-     their  master's  treasury  at  the  price  of  the  strip  of  parch- 

*a16-     ment  which  gave  them  freedom  of  trade,  of  justice,  and  of 

fjovernment.     In  the  silent  growth  and  elevation  of  the 

o  . 

English  people  the  boroughs  thus  led  the  way.  Unnoticed 
and  despised  by  prelate  and  noble  they  preserved  or  won 
back  again  the  full  tradition  of  Teutonic  liberty.  The 
right  of  self-government,  the  right  of  free  speech  in  free 
meeting,  the  right  to  equal  justice  at  the  hands  of  one's 
equals,  were  brought  safely  across  ages  of  tyranny  by  the 
burghers  and  shopkeepers  of  the  towns.  In  the  quiet 
quaintly-named  streets,  in  town-mead  and  market-place, 
in  the  lord's  mill  beside  the  stream,  in  the  bell  that 
swung  out  its  summons  to  the  crowded  borough-mote,  in 
merchant -gild,  and  church-gild  and  craft-gild,  lay  the  life 
of  Englishmen  who  were  doing  more  than  knight  and  baron 
to  make  England  what  she  is,  the  life  of  their  home  and 
their  trade,  of  their  sturdy  battle  with  oppression,  their 
steady,  ceaseless  struggle  for  right  and  freedom. 
London.  London  stood  first  among  English  towns,  and  the  privi- 
leges which  its  citizens  won  became  precedents  for  the 
burghers  of  meaner  boroughs.  Even  at  the  Conquest  its 
power  and  wealth  secured  it  a  full  recognition  of  all  its 
ancient  privileges  from  the  Conqueror.  In  one  way 
indeed  it  profited  by  the  revolution  which  laid  England  at 
the  feet  of  the  stranger.  One  immediate  result  of  William's 
success  was  an  immigration  into  England  from  the  Con- 
tinent. A  peaceful  invasion  of  the  Norman  traders  fol- 
lowed quick  on  the  invasion  of  the  Norman  soldiery. 
Every  Norman  noble  as  he  quartered  himself  upon  English 
lands,  every  Norman  abbot  as  he  entered  his  English  cloister, 
gathered  French  artists,  French  shopkeepers,  French 
domestics  about  him.  Bound  the  Abbey  of  Battle  which 
William  founded  on  the  site  of  his  great  victory  "  Gilbert 
the  Foreigner,  Gilbert  the  Weaver,  Benet  the  Steward,  Hugh 
the  Secretary,  Baldwin  the  Tailor,"  dwelt  mixed  with  the 


fil.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1-291. 


213 


English  tenantry.  But  nowhere  did  these  immigrants  play 
so  notable  a  part  as  in  London.  The  Normans  had  had 
mercantile  establishments  in  London  as  early  as  the  reign 
of  ^Ethelred,  if  not  of  Eadgar.  Such  settlements  how- 
ever naturally  formed  nothing  more  than  a  trading  colony 
like  the  colony  of  the  "  Emperor's  Men/'  or  Easterlings. 
But  with  the  Conquest  their  number  greatly  increased. 
"  Many  of  the  citizens  of  Eouen  and  Caen  passed  over 
thither,  preferring  to  be  dwellers  in  this  city,  inasmuch 
as  it  was  fitter  for  their  trading  and  better  stored  with  the 
merchandize  in  which  they  were  wont  to  traffic."  The 
status  of  these  traders  indeed  had  wholly  changed.  They 
could  no  longer  be  looked  upon  as  strangers  in  cities  which 
had  passed  under  the  Norman  rule.  In  some  cases,  as  at 
Norwich,  the  French  colony  isolated  itself  in  a  separate 
French  town,  side  by  side  with  the  English  borough.  But 
in  London  it  seems  to  have  taken  at  once  the  position  of 
a  governing  class.  Gilbert  Beket,  the  father  of  the  famous 
Archbishop,  was  believed  in  later  days  to.have  been  one  of 
the  portreeves  of  London,  the  predecessors  of  its  mayors ; 
he  held  in  Stephen's  time  a  large  property  in  houses  within 
the  walls,  and  a  proof  of  his  civic  importance  was  pre- 
served in  the  annual  visit  of  each  newly-elected  chief 
magistrate  to  his  tomb  in  a  little  chapel  which  he  had 
founded  in,  the  churchyard  of  St.  Paul's.  Yet  Gilbert  was 
one  of  the  Norman  strangers  who  followed  in  the  wake  of 
the  Conqueror ;  he  was  by  birth  a  burgher  of  Eouen,  as  his 
wife  was  of  a  burgher  family  from  Caen. 

It  was  partly  to  this  infusion  of  foreign  blood,  partly  no 
doubt  to  the  long  internal  peace  and  order  secured  by  the 
Norman  rule,  that  London  owed  the  wealth  and  import- 
ance to  which  it  attained  during  the  reign  of  Henry  the 
First.  The  charter  which  Henry  granted  it  became  a 
model  for  lesser  boroughs.  The  King  yielded  its  citizens 
the  right  of  justice ;  each  townsman  could  claim  to  be 
tried  by  his  fellow-townsmen  in  the  town-court  or 
hustings  whose  sessions  took  place  every  week.  They 

YOL.  I.— 15 


CHAP.  I. 
John 

1214 
1216. 


Freedom 

of 
London. 


214 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


John. 

1214- 
1216. 


CHAP.  I.  were  subject  only  to  the  old  English  trial  by  oath,  and 
exempt  from  the  trial  by  battle  which  the  Normans  in- 
troduced. Their  trade  was  protected  from  toll  or  exaction 
over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  The  King  how- 
ever still  nominated  in  London  as  elsewhere  the  portreeve, 
or  magistrate  of  the  town,  nor  were  the  citizens  as  yet 
united  together  in  a  commune  or  corporation.  But  an 
imperfect  civic  organization  existed  in  the  "  wards "  or 
quarters  of  the  town,  each  governed  by  its  own  alderman, 
and  in  the  "  gilds  "  or  voluntary  associations  of  merchants 
or  traders  which  ensured  order  and  mutual  protection  for 
their  members.  Loose  too  as  these  bonds  may  seem,  they 
were  drawn  firmly  together  by  the  older  English  traditions 
of  freedom  which  the  towns  preserved.  The  London  bur- 
gesses gathered  in  their  town- mote  when  the  bell  swung 
out  from  the  bell-tower  of  St.  Paul's  to  deliberate  freely 
on  their  own  affairs  under  the  presidency  of  their  alderman. 
Here  too  they  mustered  iu  arms  if  danger  threatened  the 
city,  and  delivered  the  town-banner  to  their  captain,  the 
Norman  baron  Fitz- Walter,  to  lead  them  against  the 
enemy. 

Few  boroughs  had  as  yet  attained  to  such  power  as  this, 
but  the  instance  of  Oxford  shows  how  the  freedom  of 
London  told  on  the  general  advance  of  English  towns. 
In  spite  of  antiquarian  fancies  it  is  certain  that  no  town 
had  arisen  on  the  site  of  Oxford  for  centuries  after  the 
withdrawal  of  the  Roman  legions  from  the  isle  of  Britain. 
Though  the  monastery  of  St.  Frideswide  rose  in  the  turmoil 
of  the  eighth  century  on  the  slope  which  led  down  to  a 
ford  across  the  Thames,  it  is  long  before  we  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  borough  that  must  have  grown  up  under  its  walls. 
The  first  definite  evidence  for  its  existence  lies  in  a  brief 
entry  of  the  English  Chronicle  which  recalls  its  seizure 
by  Eadward  the  Elder,  but  the  form  of  this  entry  shows 
that  the  town  was  already  a  considerable  one,  and  in  the 
last  wrestle  of  England  with  the  Dane  its  position  on  the 
borders  of  Mercia  and  Wessex  combined  with  its  com- 


Early 
O.rford. 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


215 


mand  of  the  upper  valley  of  the  Thames  to  give  it  military 
and  political  importance.  Of  the  life  of  its  burgesses 
however  we  still  know  little  or  nothing.  The  names  of  its 
parishes,  St.  Aldate,  St.  Ebbe,  St.  Mildred,  St.  Edmund, 
show  how  early  church  aftej-  church  gathered  round  the 
earlier  town-church  of  St.  Martin.  But  the  men  of  the 
little  town  remain  dim  to  us.  Their  town-mote,  or  the 
*  Portmaunimote  "  as  it  was  called,  which  was  held  in  the 
churchyard  of  St.  Martin,  still  lives  in  a  shadow  of  its  older 
self  as  the  Freeman's  Common  Hall — their  town-mead  is 
still  the  Port-meadow.  But  it  is  only  by  later  charters 
or  the  record  of  Doomsday  that  we  see  them  going  on 
pilgrimage  to  the  shrines  of  Winchester,  or  chaffering 
in  their  market-place,  or  judging  and  law-making  in  their 
hustings,  their  merchant-gild  regulating  trade,  their  reeve 
gathering  his  king's  dues  of  tax  or  money  or  marshalling 
his  troop  of  burghers  for  the  king's  wars,  their  boats 
paying  toll  of  a  hundred  herrings  in  Lent-tide  to  the 
Abbot  of  Abingdon,  as  they  floated  down  the  Thames 
towards  London. 

The  number  of  houses  marked  waste  in  the  survey 
marks  the  terrible  suffering  of  Oxford  in  the  Norman 
Conquest :  but  the  ruin  was  soon  repaired,  and  the  erec- 
tion of  its  castle,  the  rebuilding  of  its  churches,  the  plant- 
ing of  a  Jewry  in  the  heart  of  the  town,  showed  in  what 
various  ways  the  energy  of  its  new  masters  was  giving  an 
impulse  to  its  life.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  superiority  of  the 
Hebrew  dwellings  to  the  Christian  houses  about  them  that 
each  of  the  later  town-halls  of  the  borough  had,  before 
their  expulsion,  been  houses  of  Jews.  Nearly  all  the 
larger  dwelling  houses  in  fact  which  were  subsequently 
converted  into  academic  halis  bore  traces  of  the  same 
origin  in  names  such  as  Moysey's  Hall,  Lombard's  Hall, 
or  Jacob's  Hall.  The  Jewish  houses  were  abundant,  for 
besides  the  greater  Jewry  in  the  heart  of  it,  there  was  a 
lesser  Jewry  scattered  over  its  southern  quarter,  and  we 
can  hardly  doubt  that  this  abundance  of  substantial 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


216  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.    buildings  in  the  town  was  at  least  one  of  the  causes  which 
John       drew  teachers  and  scholars  within  its  walls.     The  Jewry, 
1214-     a  town  within  a  town,  lay  here  as  elsewhere  isolated  and 
1^15'     exempt  from  the  common  justice,  the  common  life  and 
self-government  of  the  borough.     On  all  but  its  eastern 
side  too  the  town  was  hemmed   in  by  jurisdictions  in- 
dependent of  its  own.     The  precincts  of  the  Abbey  of 
Osney,  the    wide   "  bailey "   of    the   Castle,   bounded  it 
narrowly  on  the  west.      To   the  north,  stretching  away 
beyond  the  little  church  of  St.  Giles,  lay  the  fields  of  the 
royal   manor   of   Beaumont.      The   Abbot    of    Abingdon, 
whose  woods  of  Cumnor  and  Bagley  closed  the  southern 
horizon,  held  his  leet-court  in  the  hamlet  of  Grampound 
beyond  the  bridge.     Nor  was  the  whole  space  within  the 
walls  subject  to  the  self-government  of  the  citizens.     The 
Jewry  had  a  rule  and  law  of  its  own.     Scores  of  house- 
holders, dotted  over  street  and  lane,  were  tenants  of  castle 
or  abbey  and  paid  no  suit  or  service  at  the  borough  court. 
Oxford         But    within    these   narrow   bounds   and   amidst   these 

and        various  obstacles  the  spirit  of  municipal  liberty  lived  a 
London.  .  r  \ 

life  the  more  intense  that  it  was  so  closely  cabined  and 

confined.  Nowhere  indeed  was  the  impulse  which  London 
was  giving  likely  to  tell  with  greater  force.  The  "  barge- 
men "  of  Oxford  were  connected  even  before  the  Conquest 
with  the  "  boatmen,"  or  shippers,  of  the  capital.  In  both 
cases  it  is  probable  that  the  bodies  bearing  these  names 
represented  what  is  known  as  the  merchant-gild  of  the  town. 
Eoyal  recognition  enables  us  to  trace  the  merchant-gild  of 
Oxford  from  the  time  of  Henry  the  First.  Even  then 
lands,  Islands,  pastures  belonged  to  it,'  and  amongst  them 
the  same  Port-meadow  which  is  familiar  to  Oxford  men 
pulling  lazily  on  a  summer's  noon  to  Godstow.  The  con- 
nexion between  the  two  gilds  was  primarily  one  of  trade. 
"  In  the  time  of  King  Eadward  and  Abbot  Ordric "  the 
channel  of  the  Thames  beneath  the  walls  of  the  Abbey  of 
Abingdon  became  so  blocked  up  that  boats  could  scarce 
pass  as  far  as  Oxford,  and  it  was  at  the  joint  prayer  of  the 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  21? 

burgesses  of  London  and  Oxford  that  the  abbot  dug  a  new    CHAP.  !. 

channel  through  the  meadow  to  the  south  of  his  church. 

But  by  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second  closer  bonds  than 

this  linked  the  two  cities  together.     In  case  of  any  doubt      12Ig- 

or    contest   about  judgements    in    their    own   court    the 

burgesses  of  Oxford  were  empowered  to  refer  the  matter 

to  the  decision  of  London,  "  and  whatsoever  the  citizens 

of  London  shall  adjudge  in  such  cases  shall  be  deemed 

right."     The  judicial  usages,  the  municipal  rights  of  each 

city  were  assimilated  by  Henry's  charter.    "  Of  whatsoever 

matter  the   men   of  Oxford   be  put   in   plea,  they   shall 

deraign   themselves  according  to  the  law  and  custom  of 

the  city  of  London  and  not  otherwise,  because  they  and 

the  citizens  of  London  ars  of  one  and  the  same  custom, 

law,  and  liberty." 

A  legal  connexion  such  as  this  could  hardly  fail  to  bring  Life  of  the 
with  it  an  identity  of  municipal  rights.  Oxford  had  Town- 
already  passed  through  the  earlier  steps  of  her  advance 
towards  municipal  freedom  before  the  conquest  of  the 
Norman.  Her  burghers  assembled  in  their  own  Portman- 
nimote,  and  their  dues  to  the  crown  were  assessed  at  a 
fixed  sum  of  honey  or  coin.  But  the  formal  definition  of 
their  rights  dates,  as  in  the  case  of  London,  from  the  time 
of  Henry  the  First.  The  customs  and  exemptions  of  its 
townsmen  were  confirmed  by  Henry  the  Second  "  as  ever 
.they  enjoyed  them  in  the  time  of  Henry  my  grandfather, 
and  in  like  manner  as  my  citizens  of  London  hold  them." 
By  this  date  the  town  had  attained  entire  judicial  and  com- 
mercial freedom,  and  liberty  of  external  commerce  was 
secured  by  the  exemption  of  its  citizens  from  toll  on  the 
king's  lands.  Complete  independence  was  reached  when 
a  charter  of  John  substituted  a  mayor  of  the  town's  own 
choosing  for  the  reeve  or  bailiff  of  the  crown.  But  dry 
details  such  as  these  tell  little  of  the  quick  pulse  of  popular 
life  that  beat  in  the  thirteenth  century  through  such  a 
community  as  that  of  Oxford.  The  church  of  St.  Martin 
in  the  very  heart  of  it,  at  the  "  Quatrevoix  "  or  Carfax 


218  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  where  its  four  streets  met,  was  the  centre  of  the  city  life. 
John  Tne  town-mote  was  held  in  its  churchyard.  Justice  was 
1214  administered  ere  yet  a  towiihall  housed  the  infant  magis- 
1216.  tracy  by  mayor  or  bailiff  sitting  beneath  a  low  pent-house, 
the  "  penniless  bench  "  of  later  days,  outside  its  eastern 
wall.  Its  bell  summoned  the  burghers  to  council  or  arms. 
Around  the  church  the  trade-gilds  were  ranged  as  in  some 
vast  encampment.  To  the  south  of  it  lay  Spicery  and 
Vintnery,  the  quarter  of  the  richer  burgesses.  Fish-street 
fell  noisily  down  to  the  bridge  and  the  ford.  The  Corn- 
market  occupied  then  as  now  the  street  which  led  to 
Northgate.  The  stalls  of  the  butchers  stretched  along  the 
"  Butcher-row,"  which  formed  the  road  to  the  bailey  and  the 
castle.  Close  beneath  the  church  lay  a  nest  of  huddled 
lanes,  broken  by  a  stately  synagogue,  and  traversed  from 
time  to  time  by  the  yellow  gaberdine  of  the  Jew.  Soldiers 
from  the  castle  rode  clashing  through  the  narrow  streets ; 
the  bells  of  Osney  clanged  from  the  swampy  meadows ; 
processions  of  pilgrims  wound  through  gates  and  lane  to 
the  shrine  of  St.  Frideswide.  Frays  were  common  enough; 
now  the  sack  of  a  Jew's  house ;  now  burgher  drawing 
knife  on  burghei? ;  now  an  outbreak  of  the  young  student 
lads  who  were  growing  every  day  in  numbers  and  audacity. 
But  as  yet  the  town  was  well  in  hand.  The  clang  of  the 
city  bell  called  every  citizen  to  his  door ;  the  call  of  the 
mayor  brought  trade  after  trade  with  bow  in  hand  and 
banners  flying  to  enforce  the  king's  peace. 

St.  The  advance  of  towns  Avhich  had  grown  up  not  on  the 

"1™™^"  r°yal  domain  but  around  abbey  or  castle  was  slower  and 
more  difficult.  The  story  of  St.  Edmundsbury  shows  how 
gradual  was  the  transition  from  pure  serfage  to  an  im- 
perfect freedom.  Much  that  had  been  plough-land  here  in 
the  Confessor's  time  was  covered  with  houses  by  the  time 
of  Henry  the  Second.  The  building  of  the  great  abbey- 
church  drew  its  craftsmen  and  masons  to  mingle  with 
the  ploughmen  and  reapers  of  the  Abbot's  domain. 
The  troubles  of  the  time  helped  here  as  elsewhere  the 


Ill] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


219 


CHAP.  I. 

John. 

1214 
1216. 


progress  of  the  town  ;  serfs,  fugitives  from  justice  or  their 
lord,  the  trader,  the  Jew,  naturally  sought  shelter  under 
the  strong  hand  of  St.  Edmund.  But  the  settlers  were 
wholly  at  the  Abbot's  mercy.  Not  a  settler  but  was  bound 
to  pay  his  pence  to  the  Abbot's  treasury,  to  plough  a 
rood  of  his  land,  to  reap  in  his  harvest-field,  to  fold 
his  sheep  in  the  Abbey  folds,  to  help  bring  the  annual 
catch  of  eels  from  the  Abbey  waters.  Within  the 
four  crosses  that  bounded  the  Abbot's  domain  land  and 
water  were  his  ;  the  cattle  of  the  townsmen  paid  for  their 
pasture  on  the  common ;  if  the  fullers  refused  the  loan  of 
their  cloth  the  cellarer  would  refuse  the  use  of  the  stream 
and  seize  their  looms  wherever  he  found  them.  No  toll 
might  be  levied  from  tenants  of  the  Abbey  farms,  and  cus- 
tomers had  to  "wait  before  shop  and  stall  till  the  buyers  of 
the  Abbot  had  had  the  pick  of  the  market.  There  was 
little  chance  of  redress,  for  if  burghers  complained  in  folk- 
mote  it  was  before  the  Abbot's  officers  that  its  meeting  was 
held;  if  they  appealed  to  the  alderman  he  was  the  Abbot's 
nominee  and  received  the  horn,  the  symbol  of  his  office,  at 
the  Abbot's  hands.  Like  all  the  greater  revolutions  of 
society,  the  advance  from  this  mere  serfage  was  a  silent 
one ;  indeed  its  more  galling  instances  of  oppression  seem 
to  have  slipped  unconsciously  away.  Some,  like  the  eel- 
fishing,  were  commuted  for  an  easy  rent;  others,  like  the 
slavery  of  the  fullers  and  the  toll  of  flax,  simply  dis- 
appeared. By  usage,  by  omission,  by  downright  forgetful- 
ness,  here  by  a  little  struggle,  there  by  a  present  to  a  needy 
abbot,  the  town  won  freedom. 

But  progress  was  not  always  unconscious,  and  one  inci-  The  Toumai 
dent  in  the  history  of  St.  Edmundsbury  is  remarkable,  not     ja™ 
nierely  as  indicating  the  advance  of  law,  but  yet  more  as 
marking  the  part  which  a  new  moral  sense  of  man's  right 
to  equal  justice  was  to  play  in  the  general  advance  of  the 
realm.     Rude  as  the  borough  was,  it  possessed  the  right 
of  meeting  in  full  assembly  of  the  townsmen  for  govern- 
ment and  law.     Justice  was  administered  in  presence  of  the 


220 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


John, 

1214 
1216. 


CHAP.  I.  burgesses,  and  the  accused  acquitted  or  condemned  by  the 
oath  of  his  neighbours.  Without  the  borough  bounds 
however  the  system  of  Norman  judicature  prevailed ;  and 
the  rural  tenants  who  did  suit  and  service  at  the  Cellerar's 
court  were  subjected  to  the  trial  by  battle.  The  execution 
of  a  farmer  named  Kebel  who  came  under  this  feudal 
jurisdiction  brought  the  two  systems  into  vivid  contrast. 
Kebel  seems  to  have  been  guiltless  of  the  crime  laid  to  his 
charge ;  but  the  duel  went  against  him  and  he  was  hung 
just  without  the  gates.  The  taunts  of  the  townsmen  woke 
his  fellow  farmers  to  a  sense  of  wrong.  "  Had  Kebel 
been  a  dweller  within  the  borough,"  said  the  burgesses, 
"he  would  have  got  his  acquittal  from  the  oaths  of  his 
neighbours,  as  our  liberty  is  ;  "  and  even  the  monks  were 
moved  to  a  decision  that  their  tenants  should  enjoy  equal 
freedom  and  justice  with  the  townsmen.  The  franchise  of 
of  the  town  was  extended  to  the  rural  possessions  of  the 
Abbey  without  it ;  the  farmers  "  came  to  the  toll-house, 
were  written  in  the  alderman's  toll,  and  paid  the  town- 
penny."  A  chance  story  preserved  in  a  charter  of  later 
date  shows  the  same  struggle  for  justice  going  on 
in  a  greater  town.  At  Leicester  the  trial  by  corn- 
purgation,  the  rough  predecessor  of  trial  by  jury,  had 
been  abolished  by  the  Earls  in  favour  of  trial  by  battle. 
The  aim  of  the  burgesses  was  to  regain  their  old 
justice,  and  in  this  a  touching  incident  at  last  made 
them  successful.  "  It  chanced  that  two  kinsmen, 
Nicholas  the  son  of  Aeon  and  Geoffrey  the  son  of  Nicholas, 
waged  a  duel  about  a  certain  piece  of  land  concerning 
which  a  dispute  had  arisen  between  them  ;  and  they  fought 
from  the  first  to  the  ninth  hour,  each  conquering  by  turns. 
Then  one  of  them  fleeing  from  the  other  till  he  came  to  a 
certain  little  pit,  as  he  stood  on  the  brink  of  the  pit  and 
was  about  to  fall  therein,  his  kinsman  said  to  him  '  Take 
care  of  the  pit,  turn  back,  lest  thou  shouldest  fall  into  it.' 
Thereat  so  much  clamour  and  noise  was  made  by  the 
bystanders  and  those  who  were  sitting  around  that  the 


Hi.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  221 

Earl  heard  these  clamours  as  far  off  as  the  castle,  and  he     CHAP.  I. 
enquired  of  some  how  it  was  there  was  such  a  clamour,  and       j^ 
answer  was  made  to  him  that  two  kinsmen  were  fighting      1214- 
about  a  certain  piece  of  ground,  and  that  one  had  fled  till      1216- 
he  reached  a  certain  little  pit,  and  that  as  he  stood  over 
the  pit  and  was  about  to  fall  into  it  the  other  warned  him. 
Then  the  townsmen  being  moved  with  pity,  made  a  covenant 
with  the  Earl  that  they  should  give  him  threepence  yearly 
for  each  house  in  the  High  Street  that  had  a  gable,  on 
condition  that  he  should  grant  to  them  that  the  twenty-four 
jurors  who  were  in  Leicester  from  ancient  times  should 
from  that  time  forward  discuss  and  decide  all  pleas  they 
might  have  among  themselves." 

At  the  time  we  have  reached  this  struggle  for  emanci-  Divisor. 
patiou  was  nearly  over.  The  larger  towns  had  secured  °f  *a^"' ' 
the  privilege  of  self-government,  the  administration  of 
justice,  and  the  control  of  their  own  trade.  The  reigns  of 
Richard  and  John  mark  the  date  in  our  municipal  his- 
tory at  which  towns  began  to  acquire  the  right  of  electing 
their  own  chief  magistrate,  the  Portreeve  or  Mayor,  who 
had  till  then  been  a  nominee  of  the  crown.  But  with 
the  close  of  this  outer  struggle  opened  an  inner  struggle  be- 
tween the  various  classes  of  the  townsmen  themselves.  The 
growth  of  wealth  and  industry  was  bringing  with  it  a  vast 
increase  of  population.  The  mass  of  the  new  settlers,  com- 
posed as  they  were  of  escaped  serfs,  of  traders  without 
landed  holdings,  of  families  who  had  lost  their  original  lot 
in  the  borough,  and  generally  of  the  artizans  and  the  poor, 
had  no  part  in  the  actual  life  of  the  town.  The  right  of 
trade  and  of  the  regulation  of  trade  in  common  with  all 
other  forms  of  jurisdiction  lay  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the 
landed  burghers  whom  we  have  described.  By  a  natural 
process  too  their  superiority  in  wealth  produced  a  fresh 
division  between  the  "  burghers  "  of  the  merchant-gild  and 
the  unenfranchised  mass  around  them.  The  same  change 
which  severed  at  Florence  the  seven  Greater  Arts  or  trades 
from  the  fourteen  Lesser  Arts,  and  which  raised  the  three 


222  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         [BOOK 


CHAP.  I.    occupations  of  banking,  the  manufacture  and  the  dyeing  of 
John       cloth,  to  a  position  of  superiority  even  within  the  privileged 
lali-      circle  of  tne  seven>  told  though  with  less  force  on  the  Eng- 
1216.      i^gh  Boroughs.   The  burghers  of  the  merchant-gild  gradually 
concentrated  themselves  on  the  greater  operations  of  com- 
merce, on  trades  which  required  a  larger  capital,  while,  the 
meaner  employments  of  general  traffic  were  abandoned  to 
their  poorer  neighbours.     This  advance  in  the  division  of 
labour  is  marked  by  such  severances  as  we  note  in  the 
thirteenth  century  of  the  cloth  merchant  from  the  tailor  or 
the  leather  merchant  from  the  butcher. 

Trade  But  the  result  of  this  severance  was  all-important  in  its 
Gilds,  influence  on  the  constitution  of  our  towns.  The  members 
of  the  trades  thus  abandoned  by  the  wealthier  burghers 
formed  themselves  into  Craft-gilds  which  soon  rose  into 
dangerous  rivalry  with  the  original  Merchant-gild  of  the 
town.  A  seven  years'  apprenticeship  formed  the  necessary 
prelude  to  full  membership  of  these  trade-gilds.  Their  regu- 
lations were  of  the  minutest  character  ;  the  quality  and 
value  of  work  were  rigidly  prescribed,  the  hours  of  toil  fixed 
"from  day-break  to  curfew,"  and  strict  provision  made 
against  competition  in  labour.  At  each  meeting  of  these 
gilds  their  members  gathered  round  the  Craft-box  which 
contained  the  rules  of  their  Society,  and  stood  with  bared 
heads  as  it  was  opened.  The  warden  and  a  quorum  of  gild- 
brothers  formed  a  court  which  enforced  the  ordinances  of 
the  gild,  inspected  all  work  done  by  its  members,  confiscated 
unlawful  tools  or  unworthy  goods  ;  and  disobedience  to 
their  orders  was  punished  by  fines  or  in  the  last  resort  by 
expulsion,  which  involved  the  loss  of  a  right  to  trade.  A 
common  fund  was  raised  by  contributions  among  the 
members,  which  not  only  provided  for  the  trade  objects  of 
the  gild  but  sufficed  to  found  chantries  and  masses  and 
set  up  painted  windows  in  the  church  of  their  patron  saint. 
Even  at  the  present  day  the  arms  of  a  craft-gild  may  often 
be  seen  blazoned  in  cathedrals  side  by  side  with  those  of 
prelates  and  of  kings.  But  it  was  only  by  slow  degrees  that 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


223 


they  rose  to  such  a  height  as  this.  The  first  steps  in  their 
existence  were  the  most  difficult,  for  to  enable  a  trade-gild 
to  carry  out  its  objects  with  any  success  it  was  first  neces- 
sary that  the  whole  body  of  craftsmen  belonging  to  the 
trade  should  be  compelled  to  join  the  gild,  and  secondly 
that  a  legal  control  over  the  trade  itself  should  be  secured 
to  it.  A  royal  charter  was  indispensable  for  these  purposes, 
and  over  the  grant  of  these  charters  took  place  the  first 
struggle  with  the  merchant-gilds  which  had  till  then  solely 
exercized  jurisdiction  over  trade  within  the  boroughs.  The 
weavers,  who  were  the  first  trade-gild  to  secure  royal 
sanction  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  First,  were  still  engaged 
in  a  contest  for  existence  as  late  as  the  reign  of  John  when 
the  citizens  of  London  bought  for  a  time  the  suppression  of 
their  gild.  Even  under  the  House  of  Lancaster  Exeter  was 
engaged  in  resisting  the  establishment  of  a  tailor's  gild. 
From  the  eleventh  century  however  the  spread  of  these 
societies  went  steadily  on,  and  the  control  of  trade  passed 
more  and  more  from  the  merchant-gilds  to  the  craft-gilds. 

It  is  this  struggle,  to  use  the  technical  terms  of  the  time, 
of  the  "  greater  folk  "  against  the  "  lesser  folk,"  or  of  the 
"  commune,"  the  general  mass  of  the  inhabitants,  against 
the  "  prudhommes,"  or  "  wiser  "  few,  which  brought  about, 
as  it  passed  from  the  regulation  of  trade  to  the  general 
government  of  the  town,  the  great  civic  revolution  of  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries.  On  the  Continent, 
and  especially  along  the  Rhine,  the  struggle  was  as  fierce 
as  the  supremacy  of  the  older  burghers  had  been  complete. 
In  Koln  the  craftsmen  had  been  reduced  to  all  but  serfage, 
and  the  merchant  of  Brussels  might  box  at  his  will  the 
ears  of  "  the  man  without  heart  or  honour  who  lives  by  his 
toil."  Such  social  tyranny  of  class  over  class  brought  a 
century  of  bloodshed  to  the  cities  of  Germany;  but  in 
England  the  tyranny  of  class  over  class  was  restrained  by 
the  general  tenor  of  the  law,  and  the  revolution  took  for  the 
most  part  a  milder  form.  The  longest  and  bitterest  strife  of 
all  was  naturally  at  London. ,  Nowhere  had  the  territorial 


CHAP.  1. 
John. 

1214- 
1216. 


Greater 

and  Lesser 

Folk. 


224  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  constitution  struck  root  so  deeply,  and  nowhere  had  the 
John  landed  oligarchy  risen  to  such  a  height  of  wealth  and  in- 
1214-  fluence.  The  city  was  divided  into  wards,  each  of  which 
Iai6>  was  governed  by  an  alderman  drawn  from  the  ruling  class. 
In  some  indeed  the  office  seems  to  have  become  hereditary. 
The  "  magnates,"  or  "  barons,"  of  the  merchant-gild  advised 
alone  on  all  matters  of  civic  government  or  trade  regulation, 
and  distributed  or  assessed  at  their  will  the  revenues  or 
burthens  of  the  town.  Such  a  position  afforded  an  opening 
for  corruption  and  oppression  of  the  most  galling  kind ;  and 
it  seems  to  have  been  a  general  impression  of  the  unfair 
assessment  of  the  dues  levied  on  the  poor  and  the  undue 
burthens  which  were  thrown  on  the  unenfranchised  classes 
which  provoked  the  first  serious  discontent.  In  the  reign 
of  Richard  the  First  William  of  the  Long  Beard,  though 
one  of  the  governing  body,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  a 
conspiracy  which  in  the  panic-stricken  fancy  of  the  burghers 
numbered  fifty  thousand  of  the  craftsmen.  His  eloquence, 
his  bold  defiance  of  the  aldermen  in  the  town- mote,  gained 
him  at  any  rate  a  wide  popularity,  and  the  crowds  who 
surrounded  him  hailed  him  as  "  the  saviour  of  the  poor." 
One  of  his  addresses  is  luckily  preserved  to  us  by  a  hearer  of 
the  time.  In  mediaeval  fashion  he  began  with  a  text  from 
the  Vulgate,  "Ye  shall  draw  water  with  joy  from  the  foun- 
tain of  the  Saviour."  "  I,"  he  began,  "  am  the  saviour  of 
the  poor.  Ye  poor  men  who  have  felt  the  weight  of  rich 
men's  hands,  draw  from  my  fountain  waters  of  wholesome 
instruction  and  that  with  joy,  for  the  time  of  your  visitation 
is  at  hand.  For  I  will  divide  the  waters  from  the  waters. 
It  is  the  people  who  are  the  waters,  and  I  will  divide  the 
lowly  and  faithful  folk  from  the  proud  and  faithless  folk ; 
I  will  part  the  chosen  from  the  reprobate  as  light  from  dark- 
ness." But  it  was  in  vain  that  he  strove  to  win  royal 
favour  for  the  popular  cause.  The  support  of  the  moneyed 
classes  was  essential  to  Richard  in  the  costly  wars  with 
Philip  of  France ;  and  the  Justiciar,  Archbishop  Hubert, 
after  a  moment  of  hesitation  issued  orders  for  William 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


225 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


Longbeard's  arrest.  William  felled  with  an  axe  the  first 
soldier  who  advanced  to  seize  him,  and  taking  refuge 
with  a  few  adherents  in  the  tower  of  St.  Mary-le-Bow 
summoned  his  adherents  to  rise.  Hubert  however,  who 
had  already  flooded  the  city  with  troops,  with  bold  con- 
tempt of  the  right  of  sanctuary  set  fire  to  the  tower. 
William  was  forced  to  surrender,  and  a  burgher's  son, 
whose  father  he  had  slain,  stabbed  him  as  he  came  forth. 
With  his  death  the  quarrel  slumbered  for  more  than  fifty 
years.  But  the  movement  towards  equality  went  steadily 
on.  Under  pretext  of  preserving  the  peace  the  unen- 
franchised townsmen  united  in  secret  frith-gilds  of  their 
own,  and  mobs  rose  from  time  to  time  to  sack  the  houses 
of  foreigners  and  the  wealthier  burgesses.  Nor  did  London 
stand  alone  in  this  movement.  In  all  the  larger  towns  the 
same  discontent  prevailed,  the  same  social  growth  called 
for  new  institutions,  and  in  their  silent  revolt  against  the 
oppression  of  the  Merchant-gild  the  Craft-gilds  were  train- 
ing themselves  to  stand  forward  as  champions  of  a  wider 
liberty  in  the  Barons'  War. 

Without  the  towns  progress  was  far  slower  and  more 
fitful.  It  would  seem  indeed  that  the  conquest  of  the  Villein, 
Norman  bore  harder  on  the  rural  population  than  on  any 
other  class  of  Englishmen.  Under  the  later  kings  of  the 
house  of  JElfred  the  number  .of  absolute  slaves  and  the 
number  of  freemen  had  alike  diminished.  The  pure  slave 
class  had  never  been  numerous,  and  it  had  been  reduced  by 
the  efforts  of  the  Church,  perhaps  by  the  general  convulsion 
of  the  Danish  wars.  But  these  wars  had  often  driven  the 
ceorl  or  freeman  of  the  township  to  "  commend  "  himself 
to  a  thegn  who  pledged  him  his  protection  in  consideration 
of  payment  in  a  rendering  of  labour.  It  is  probable  that 
these  dependent  ceorls  are  the  '  villeins '  of  the  Norman 
epoch,  the  most  numerous  class  of  the  Domesday  Survey, 
men  sunk  indeed  from  pure  freedom  and  bound  both  to 
soil  and  lord,  but  as  yet  preserving  much  of  their  older 
rights,  retaining  their  land,  free  as  against  all  men  but 


The 


226  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  their  lord,  and  still  sending  representatives  to  huiidred- 
Joim  moot  and  shire-moot.  They  stood  therefore  far  above  the 
iai4-  "  landless  man,"  the  man  who  had  never  possessed  even 
laie.  uncier  the  old  constitution  political  rights,  whom  the  legis- 
lation of  the  English  Kings  had  forced  to  attach  himself 
to  a  lord  on  pain  of  outlawry,  and  who  served  as  household 
servant  or  as  hired  labourer  or  at  the  best  as  rent-paying 
tenant  of  land  which  was  not  his  own.  The  Norman 
knight  or  lawyer  however  saw  little  distinction  between 
these  classes ;  and  the  tendency  of  legislation  under  the 
Angevins  was  to  blend  all  in  a  single  class  of  serfs.  While 
the  pure  '  theow  '  or  absolute  slave  disappeared  therefore 
the  ceorl  or  villein  sank  lower  in  the  social  scale.  But 
though  the  rural  population  was  undoubtedly  thrown  more 
together  and  fused  into  a  more  homogeneous  class,  its  actual 
position  corresponded  very  imperfectly  with  the  view  of 
the  lawyers.  All  indeed  were  dependents  on  a  lord.  The 
manor-house  became  the  centre  of  every  English  village. 
The  manor-court  was  held  in  its  hall ;  it  was  here  that  the 
lord  or  his  steward  received  homage,  recovered  fines,  held 
the  view  of  frank-pledge,  or  enrolled  the  villagers  in  their 
tithing.  Here  too,  if  the  lord  possessed  criminal  juris- 
diction, was  held  his  justice  court,  and  without  its  doors 
stood  his  gallows.  Around  it  lay  the  lord's  demesne  or 
home-farm,  and  the  cultivation  of  this  rested  wholly  with 
the  "  villeins  "  of  the  manor.  It  was  by  them  that  the 
great  barn  was  filled  with  sheaves,  the  sheep  shorn,  the 
grain  malted,  the  wood  hewn  for  the  manor- hall  fire. 
These  services  were  the  labour-rent  by  which  they  held 
their  lands,  and  it  was  the  nature  and  extent  of  this 
labour-rent  which  parted  one  class  of  the  population  from 
another.  The  '  villein,'  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word, 
was  bound  only  to  gather  in  his  lord's  harvest  and  to  aid 
in  the  ploughing  and  sowing  of  autumn  and  Lent.  The 
cottar,  the  bordar,  and  the  labourer  were  bound  to  help  in 
the  work  of  the  home-farm  throughout  the  year. 

But  these  services  and  the  time  of  rendering  them  were 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  227 

strictly  limited  by  custom,  not  only  in  the  case  of  the  CHAP.  I. 
ceorl  or  villein  but  in  that  of  the  originally  meaner  "  land-  j~^ 
less  man."  The  possession  of  his  little  homestead  with  the  iaii- 
ground  around  it,  the  privilege  of  turning  out  his  cattle  on  iai6* 
the  waste  of  the  manor,  passed  quietly  and  insensibly  from 
mere  indulgences  that  could  be  granted  or  withdrawn  at  a 
lord's  caprice  into  rights  that  could  be  pleaded  at  law. 
The  number  of  teams,  the  lines,  the  reliefs,  the  services 
that  a  lord  could  claim,  at  first  mere  matter  of  oral  tradi- 
tion, came  to  be  entered  on  the  court-roll  of  the  manor,  a 
copy  of  which  became  the  title-deed  of  the  villein.  It 
was  to  this  that  he  owed  the  name  of  "  copy-holder"  which 
at  a  later  time  superseded  his  older  title.  Disputes  were 
settled  by  a  reference  to  this  roll  or  on  oral  evidence  of  the 
custom  at  issue,  but  a  social  arrangement  which  was  emi- 
nently characteristic  of  the  English  spirit  of  compromise 
generally  secured  a  fair  adjustment  of  the  claims  of  villein 
and  lord.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  lord's  bailiff  to  exact 
their  due  services  from  the  villeins,  but  his  coadjutor  in 
this  office,  the  reeve  or  foreman  of  the  manor,  was  chosen 
by  the  tenants  themselves  and  acted  as  representative  of 
their  interests  and  rights.  A  fresh  step  towards  freedom 
was  made  by  the  growing  tendency  to  commute  labour- 
services  for  money-payments.  The  population  was  slowly 
increasing,  and  as  the  law  of  gavel-kind  which  was  ap- 
plicable to  all  landed  estates  not  held  by  military  tenure 
divided  the  inheritance  of  the  tenantry  equally  among 
their  sons  the  holding  of  each  tenant  and  the  services  due 
from  it  became  divided  in  a  corresponding  degree.  A 
labour-rent  thus  became  more  difficult  to  enforce,  while  the 
increase  of  wealth  among  the  tenantry  and  the  rise  of  a 
new  spirit  of  independence  made  it  more  burthensome  to 
those  who  rendered  it.  It  was  probably  from  this  cause 
that  the  commutation  of  the  arrears  of  labour  for  a  money 
payment,  which  had  long  prevailed  on  every  estate, 
gradually  developed  into  a  general  commutation  of  services. 
We  have  already  witnessed  the  silent  progress  of  this 


228 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I 
John. 

1214- 
1216. 


remarkable  change  in  the  case  of  St.  Edmundsbury,  but  the 
practice  soon  became  universal,  and  "  malt-silver,"  "  wood- 
silver,"  and  "  larder-silver  "  gradually  took  the  place  of  the 
older  personal  services  on  the  court-rolls.  The  process  of 
commutation  was  hastened  by  the  necessities  of  the  lords 
themselves.  The  luxury  of  the  castle-hall,  the  splendour 
and  pomp  of  chivalry,  the  cost  of  campaigne  drained  the 
purses  of  knight  and  baron,  and  the  sale  of  freedom  to  a 
serf  or  exemption  from  services  to  a  villein  afforded  an 
easy  and  tempting  mode  of  refilling  them.  In  this  process 
even  Kings  took  part.  At  a  later  time,  under  Edward  the 
Third,  commissioners  were  sent  to  royal  estates  for  the 
especial  purpose  of  selling  manumissions  to  the  King's 
serfs ;  and  we  still  possess  the  names  of  those  who  were 
enfranchised  with  their  families  by  a  payment  of  hard  cash 
in  aid  of  the  exhausted  exchequer. 

England.  Such  was  the  people  which  had  been  growing  into  a 
national  unity  and  a  national  vigour  while  English  king 
and  English  baronage  battled  for  rule.  But  king  and 
baronage  themselves  had  changed  like  townsman  and  ceorl. 
The  loss  of  Normandy,  entailing  as  it  did  the  loss  of 
their  Norman  lands,  was  the  last  of  many  influences 
which  had  been  giving  through  a  century  and  a  half  a 
national  temper  to  the  baronage.  Not  only  the  "  new 
men,"  the  ministers  out  of  whom  the  two  Henrys  had 
raised  a  nobility,  were  bound  to  the  Crown,  but  the  older 
feudal  houses  now  owned  themselves  as  Englishmen  and 
set  aside  their  aims  after  personal  independence  for  a  love 
of  the  general  freedom  of  the  land.  They  stood  out  as 
the  natural  leaders  of  a  people  bound  together  by  the 
stern  government  which  had  crushed  all  local  division, 
which  had  accustomed  men  to  the  enjoyment  of  a  peace  and 
justice  that  imperfect  as  it  seems  to  modern  eyes  was 
almost  unexampled  elsewhere  in  Europe,  and  which  had 
trained  them  to  something  of  their  old  free  government 
again  by  the  very  machinery  of  election  it  used  to  facili- 
tate its  heavy  taxation.  On  the  other  hand  the  loss  of 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


229 


Normandy  brought  home  the  King.  The  growth  which 
had  been  going  on  had  easily  escaped  the  eyes  of  rulers 
who  were  commonly  absent  from  the  realm  and  busy 
with  the  affairs  of  countries  beyond  the  sea.  Henry  the 
Second  had  been  absent  for  years  from  England :  Richard 
had  only  visited  it  twice  for  a  few  months  :  John  had  as 
yet  been  almost  wholly  occupied  with  his  foreign  do- 
minions. To  him  as  to  his  brother  England  had  as  yet 
been  nothing  but  a  land  whose  gold  paid  the  mercenaries 
that  followed  him,  and  whose  people  bowed  obediently  to 
his  will.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  between  such  a  ruler  and 
such  a  nation  once  brought  together  strife  must  come : 
but  that  the  strife  came  as  it  did  and  ended  as  it  did  was 
due  above  all  to  the  character  of  the  King. 

"Foul  as  it  is,  hell  itself  is  defiled  by  the  fouler 
presence  of  John."  The  terrible  verdict  of  his  contem- 
poraries has  passed  into  the  sober  judgement  of  history. 
Externally  John  possessed  all  the  quickness,  the  vivacity, 
the  cleverness,  the  good-humour,  the  social  charm  which 
distinguished  his  house.  His  worst  enemies  owned  that 
lie  toiled  steadily  and  closely  at  the  work  of  adminis- 
tration. He  was  fond  of  learned  men  like  Gerald  of 
Wales.  He  had  a  strange  gift  of  attracting  friends 
and  of  winning  the  love  of  women.  But  in  his  inner 
soul  John  was  the  worst  outcome  of  the  Angevins. 
He  united  into  one  mass  of  wickedness  their  insolence, 
their  selfishness,  their  unbridled  lust,  their  cruelty  and 
tyranny,  their  shamelessness,  their  superstition,  their 
cynical  indifference  to  honour  or  truth.  In  mere  boy- 
hood he  tore  with  brutal  levity  the  beards  of  the  Irish 
chieftains  who  came  to  own  him  as  their  lord.  His 
ingratitude  and  perfidy  brought  his  father  with  sorrow  to 
the  grave.  To  his  brother  he  was  the  worst  of  traitors. 
All  Christendom  believed  him  to  be  the  murderer  of  his 
nephew,  Arthur  of  Britanny.  He  abandoned  one  wife 
and  was  faithless  to  another.  His  punishments  were 
refinements  of  cruelty,  the  starvation  of  children,  the 

VOL.  L— 16 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


John. 


230  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  crushing  old  men  under  copes  of  lead.  His  court  was 
..—  a  brothel  where  no  woman  was  safe  from  the  royal  lust, 
i2iV  and  where  his  cynicism  loved  to  publish  the  news  of  his 
1216.  victims'  shame.  He  was  as  craven  in  his  superstition 
as  he  was  daring  in  his  impiety.  Though  he  scoffed  at 
priests  and  turned  his  back  on  the  mass  even  amidst 
the  solemnities  of  his  coronation  lie  never  stirred  on  a 
journey  without  hanging  relics  round  his  neck.  But  with 
the  wickedness  of  his  race  he  inherited  its  profound 
ability.  His  plan  for  the  relief  of  Chateau  Gaillard, 
the  rapid  march  by  which  he  shattered  Arthur's  hopes  at 
Mirabel,  showed  an  inborn  genius  for  war.  In  the 
rapidity  and  breadth  of  his  political  combinations  he  far 
surpassed  the  statesmen  of  "his  time.  Throughout  his 
reign  we  see  him  quick  to  discern  the  difficulties  of  his 
position,  and  inexhaustible  in  the  resources  with  which 
he  met  them.  The  overthrow  of  his  continental  power 
only  spurred  him  to  the  formation  of  a  league  which  all 
but  brought  Philip  to  the  ground ;  and  the  sudden  revolt 
of  England  was  parried  by  a  shameless  alliance  with 
the  Papacy.  The  closer  study  of  John's  history  clears 
away  the  charges  of  sloth  and  incapacity  with  which  men 
tried  to  explain  the  greatness  of  his  fall.  The  awful 
lesson  of  his  life  rests  on  the  fact  that  the  king  who  lost 
Normandy,  became  the  vassal  of  the  Pope,  and  perished 
in  a  struggle  of  despair  against  English  freedom  was  no 
weak  and  indolent  voluptuary  but  the  ablest  and  most 
ruthless  of  the  An^evins. 

O 

Innocent  From  the  moment  of  his  return  to  England' in  1204 
•  John's  whole  energies  were  bent  to  the  recovery  of  his 
dominions  on  the  Continent.  He  impatiently  collected 
money  and  men  for  the  support  of  those  adherents  of  the 
House  of  Anjou  who  were  still  struggling  against  the  arms 
of  France  in  Poitou  and  Guienne,  and  in  the  summer  of 
1205  he  gathered  an  army  at  Portsmouth  and  prepared  to 
cross  the  Channel.  But  his  project  was  suddenly  thwarted 
by  the  resolute  opposition  of  the  Primate,  Hubert  Walter, 


Hl.J  THE  CllAKTEli.     KO.— I5*yj.  231 

and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  William  Marshal.  So  com- .  CHAP.  l. 
pletely  had  both  the  baronage  and  the  Church  been  j^ 
humbled  by  his  father  that  the  attitude  of  their  repre-  iaii- 
sentatives  revealed  to  the  King  a  new  spirit  of  national  iaig' 
freedom  which  was  rising  around  him,  and  John  at  once 
braced  himself  to  a  struggle  with  it.  The  death  of 
Hubert  Walter  in  July,  only  a  few  days  after  his  pro- 
test, removed  his  most  formidable  opponent,  and  the 
King  resolved  to  neutralize  the  opposition  of  the  Church 
by  placing  a  creature  of  his  own  at  its  head.  John 
de  Grey,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  was  elected  by  the  monks 
of  Canterbury  at  his  bidding,  and  enthroned  as  Primate. 
But  in  a  previous  though  informal  gathering  the  con- 
vent had  already  chosen  its  sub-prior,  Eeginald,  as 
Archbishop.  The  rival  claimants  hastened  to  appeal  to 
Koine,  and  their  appeal  reached  the  Papal  Court  before 
Christmas.  The  result  of  the  contest  was  a  startling  one 
both  for  themselves  and  for  the  King.  After  a  year's 
careful  examination  Innocent  the  Third,  wrho  now  occupied 
the  Papal  throne,  quashed  at  the  close  of  1206  both  the 
contested  elections.  The  decision  was  probably  a  just  one, 
but  Innocent  was  far  from  stopping  there.  The  monks 
who  appeared  before  him  brought  powers  from  the 
convent  to  choose  a  new  Primate  should  their  earlier 
nomination  be  set  aside ;  and  John,  secretly  assured  of 
their  choice  of  Grey,  had  promised  to  confirm  their 
election.  But  the  bribes  which  the  King  lavished  at  Kome 
failed  to  win  the  Pope  over  to  this  plan  ;  and  whether  from 
mere  love  of  power,  for  he  was  pushing  the  Papal  claims 
}f  supremacy  over  Christendom  further  than  any  of  his 
predecessors,  or  as  may  fairly  be  supposed  in  despair  of  a 
Free  election  within  English  bounds,  Innocent  commanded 
the  monks  to  elect  in  his  presence  Stephen  Langton  to  the 
archiepiscopal  see. 

Personally  a  better  choice  could  not  have  been  made,      The 
for  Stephen  was  a  man  who  by  sheer  weight  of  learn-  In(erdt('t- 
ing  and    holiness   of  life   had   risen  to   the  dignity   of 


232  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP:  I.  jCardinal  and  whose  after  career  placed  him  in  the  front 
jrtoL  rank  of  English  patriots.  But  in  itself  the  step  was  an 
1214.-  usurpation  of  the  rights  both  of  the  Church  and  of 
laie.  t|ie  Qrown  xhe  King  at  once  met  it  with  resistance. 
When  Innocent  consecrated  the  new  Primate  in  June, 
1207,  and  threatened  the  realm  with  interdict  if  Langton 
were  any  longer  excluded  from  his  see,  John  replied  by  a 
counter  threat  that  the  interdict  should  be  followed  by  the 
banishment  of  the  clergy  and  the  mutilation  of  every 
Italian  he  could  seize  in  the  realm.  How  little  he  feared 
the  priesthood  he  showed  when  the  clergy  refused  his 
demand  of  a  thirteenth  of  movables  for  the  whole  country 
and  Archbishop  Geoffry  of  York  resisted  the  tax  before  the 
Council.  John  banished  the  Archbishop  and  extorted  the 
money.  Innocent  however  was  not  a  man  to  draw  back 
from  his  purpose,  and  in  March  1208  the  interdict  he  had 
threatened  fell  upon  the  land.  All  worship  save  that  of 
a  few  privileged  orders,  all  administration  of  Sacraments 
save  that  of  private  baptism,  ceased  over  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  country :  the  church-bells  were  silent,  the 
dead  lay  unburied  on  the  ground.  Many  of  the  bishops 
fled  from  the  country.  The  Church  in  fact,  so  long  the  main 
support  of  the  royal  power  against  the  baronage,  was  now 
driven  into  opposition.  Its  change  of  attitude  was  to  be 
of  vast  moment  in  the  struggle  which  was  impending; 
but  John  recked  little  of  the  future  ;  he  replied  to  the 
interdict  by  confiscating  the  lands  of  the  clergy  who 
observed  it,  by  subjecting  them  in  spite  of  their  privileges 
to  the  royal  courts,  and  by  leaving  outrages  on  them  un- 
punished. "  Let  him  go,"  said  John,  when  a  Welshman 
was  brought  before  him  for  the  murder  of  a  priest,  "he  has 
killed  my  enemy."  In  1209  the  Pope  proceeded  to  the 
further  sentence  of  excommunication,  and  the  King  was 
formally  cut  off  from  the  pale  of  the  Church.  But  the  new 
sentence  was  met  with  the  same  defiance  as  the  old.  Five 
of  the  bishops  fled  over  sea,  and  secret  disaffection  was 
spreading  widely,  but  there  was  no  public  avoidance  of 


in.]  THE  CHARTER     1204—1291.  233 

the  excommunicated  King.     An  Archdeacon  of  Norwich    CHAP.  I. 
who  withdrew  from  his  service  was  crushed  to  death  under      j^n 
a  cope  of  lead,  and  the  hint  was  sufficient  to  prevent  either      1214- 
prelate  or  noble  from  following  his  example.  iai«. 

The  attitude  of  John  showed  the  power  which  the  Th* 
administrative  reforms  of  his  father  had  given  to  the  Deposition 
Crown.  He  stood  alone,  with  nobles  estranged  from  him 
and  the  Church  against  him,  but  his  strength  seemed  utter- 
ly unbroken.  From  the  first  moment  of  his  rule  John 
had  defied  the  baronage.  The  promise  to  satisfy  their 
demand  for  redress  of  wrongs  in  the  past  reign,  a  promise 
made  at  his  election,  remained  unfulfilled ;  when  the 
demand  was  repeated  he  answered  it  by  seizing  their 
castles  and  taking  their  children  as  hostages  for  their 
loyalty.  The  cost  of  his  fruitless  threats  of  war  had  been 
met  by  heavy  and  repeated  taxation,  by  increased  land 
tax  and  increased  scut  age.  The  quarrel  with  the  Church 
and  fear  of  their  revolt  only  deepened  his  oppression 
of  the  nobles.  He  drove  De  Braose,  one  of  the  most 
powerful  of  the  Lords  Marchers,  to  die  in  exile,  while  his 
wife  and  grandchildren  were  believed  to  have  been  starved 
to  death  in  the  royal  prisons.  On  the  nobles  who  still 
clung  panic-stricken  to  the  court  of  the  excommunicate 
king  John  heaped  outrages  worse  than  death.  Illegal  ex- 
actions, the  seizure  of  their  castles,  the  preference  shown 
to  foreigners,  were  small  provocations  compared  with  his 
attacks  on  the  honour  of  their  wives  and  daughters.  But 
the  baronage  still  submitted.  The  financial  exactions 
indeed  became  light  as  John  filled  his  treasury  with  the 
goods  of  the  Church  ;  the  King's  vigour  was  seen  in  the 
rapidity  with  which  he  crushed  a  rising  of  the  nobles  in 
Ireland  and  foiled  an  outbreak  of  the  Welsh;  while  the 
triumphs  of  his  father  had  taught  the  baronage  its  weakness 
in  any  single-handed  struggle  against  the  Crown.  Hated 
therefore  as  he  was  the  land  remained  still.  Only  one 
weapon  was  now  left  in  Innocent's  hands.  Men  held  then 
that  a  King,  once  excommunicate,  ceased  to  be  a  Christian 


234 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 

John. 

1214- 
11216. 


John's 
Submis- 
sion. 


or  to  have  claims  on  the  obedience  of  Christian  subjects. 
As  spiritual  heads  of  Christendom,  the  Popes  had  ere  now 
asserted  their  right  to  remove  such  a  ruler  from  his  throne 
and  to  give  it  to  a  worthier  than  he  ;  and  it  was  this  right 
which  Innocent  at  last  felt  himself  driven  to  exercize. 
After  useless  threats  he  issued  in  1212  a  bull  of  deposition 
against  John,  absolved  his  subjects  from  their  allegiance, 
proclaimed  a  crusade  against  him  as  an  enemy  to  Christi- 
anity and  the  Church,  and  committed  the  execution  of  the 
sentence  to  the  King  of  the  French.  John  met  the 
announcement  of  this  step  with  the  same  scorn  as  before. 
His  insolent  disdain  suffered  the  Boman  legate,  Cardinal 
Pandulf,  to  proclaim  his  deposition  to  his  face  at  North- 
ampton. When  Philip  collected  an  army  for  an  attack  on 
England  an  enormous  host  gathered  at  the  King's  call  on 
Barham  Down;  and  the  English  fleet  dispelled  all  danger 
of  invasion  by  crossing  the  Channel,  by  capturing  a  number 
of  French  ships,  and  by  burning  Dieppe. 

But  it  was  not  in  England  only  that  the  King  showed 
his  strength  and  activity.  Vile  as  he  was,  John  possessed 
in  a  high  degree  the  political  ability  of  his  race,  and  in 
the  diplomatic  efforts  with  which  he  met  the  danger  from 
France  he  showed  himself  his  father's  equal.  The  barons 
of  Poitou  were  roused  to  attack  Philip  from  the  south. 
John  bought  the  aid  of  the  Count  of  Flanders  on  his 
northern  border.  The  German  King,  Otto,  pledged  him- 
self to  bring  the  knighthood  of  Germany  to  support  an 
invasion  of  France.  But  at  the  moment  of  his  success 
in  diplomacy  John  suddenly  gave  way.  It  was  in 
fact  the  revelation  of  a  danger  at  home  which  shook 
him  from  his  attitude  of  contemptuous  defiance.  The 
bull  of  deposition  gave  fresh  energy  to  every  enemy.  The 
Scotch  King  was  in  correspondence  with  Innocent.  The 
Welsh  princes  who  had  just  been  forced  to  submission 
broke  out  again  in  war.  John  hanged  their  hostages,  and 
called  his  host  to  muster  for  a  fresh  inroad  into  Wales, 
but  the  army  met  only  to  become  a  fresh  source  of  danger. 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


235 


Powerless  to  oppose  the  King  openly,  the  baronage  had 
plunged  almost  to  a  man  into  secret  conspiracies.  The 
hostility  of  Philip  had  dispelled  their  dread  of  isolated 
action  ;  many  indeed  had  even  promised  aid  to  the  French 
King  on  his  landing.  John  found  himself  in  the  midst  of 
hidden  enemies ;  and  nothing  could  have  saved  him  but 
the  haste — whether  of  panic  or  quick  decision — with  which 
he  disbanded  his  army  and  took  refuge  in  Nottingham 
Castle.  The  arrest  of  some  of  the  barons  showed  how 
true  were  his  fears,  for  the  heads  of  the  French  conspiracy, 
Robert  Fitzwalter  and  Eustace  de  Vesci,  at  once  fled  over 
sea  to  Philip.  His  daring  self-confidence,  the  skill  of  his 
diplomacy,  could  no  longer  hide  from  John  the  utter  lone- 
liness of  his  position.  At  war  with  Rome,  with  France, 
with  Scotland,  Ireland  and  Wales,  at  war  with  the  Church, 
he  saw  himself  disarmed  by  this  sudden  revelation  of 
treason  in  the  one  force  left  at  his  disposal.  With  char- 
acteristic suddenness  he  gave  way.  He  endeavoured  by 
remission  of  fines  to  win  back  his  people.  He  negotiated 
eagerly  with  the  Pope,  consented  to  receive  the  Archbishop, 
and  promised  to  repay  the  money  he  had  extorted  from 
the  Church. 

But  the  shameless  ingenuity  of  the  King's  temper  was 
seen  in  his  resolve  to  find  in  his  very  humiliation  a  new 
source  of  strength.  If  he  yielded  to  the  Church  he  had 
no  mind  to  yield  to  the  rest  of  his  foes  ;  it  was  indeed  in 
the  Pope  who  had  defeated  him  that  he  saw  the  means  of 
baffling  their  efforts.  It  was  Rome  that  formed  the  link 
between  the  varied  elements  of  hostility  which  combined 
against  him.  It  was  Rome  that  gave  its  sanction  to  Philip's 
ambition  and  roused  the  hopes  of  Scotch  and  Welsh,  Rome 
that  called  the  clergy  to  independence  and  nerved  the 
barons  to  resistance.  To  detach  Innocent  by  submission 
from  the  league  which  hemmed  him  in  on  every  side 
was  the  least  part  of  John's  purpose.  He  resolved  to 
make  Rome  his  ally,  to  turn  its  spiritual  thunders  on 
his  foes,  to  use  it  in  breaking  up  the  confederacy  it 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214^ 
1216. 


John 
becomes 
vassal  of 

Rome. 


236  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  had  formed,  in  crushing  the  baronage,  in  oppressing  the 
John  clergy>  in  paralyzing — as  Rome  only  could  paralyze — the 
isii-  energy  of  the  Primate.  That  greater  issues  even  than 
1216.  t^ese  were  involved  in  John's  rapid  change  of  policy 
time  was  to  show;  but  there  is  no  need  to  credit  the 
King  with  the  foresight  that  would  have  discerned  them. 
His  quick  versatile  temper  saw  no  doubt  little  save 
the  momentary  gain.  But  that  gain  was  immense. 
Nor  was  the  price  as  hard  to  pay  as  it  seems  to  modern 
eyes.  The  Pope  stood  too  high  above  earthly  monarchs, 
his  claims,  at  least  as  Innocent  conceived  and  expressed 
them,  were  too  spiritual,  too  remote  from  the  immediate 
business  and  interests  of  the  day,  to  make  the  owning 
of  his  suzerainty  any  very  practical  burthen.  John 
could  recall  a  time  when  his  father  was  willing  to  own 
the  same  subjection  as  that  which  he  was  about  to 
take  on  himself.  He  could  recall  the  parallel  allegiance 
which  his  brother  had  pledged  to  the  Emperor.  Shame 
indeed  there  must  be  in  any  loss  of  independence,  but  in 
this  less  than  any  and  with  Borne  the  shame  of  submission 
had  already  been  incurred.  But  whatever  were  the  King's 
thoughts  his  act  was  decisive.  On  the  15th  of  May  1213 
he  knelt  before  the  legate  Pandulf,  surrendered  his  king- 
dom to  the  Roman  See,  took  it  back  again  as  a  tributary 
vassal,  swore  fealty  and  did  liege  homage  to  the  Pope. 
Its  In  after  times  men  believed  that  England  thrilled  at 

Results.  tne  news  wjth  a  sense  of  national  shame  such  as  she 
had  never  felt  before.  "  He  has  become  the  Pope's 
man"  the  whole  country  was  said  to  have  murmured; 
"  he  has  forfeited  the  very  name  of  King ;  from  a  free 
man  ho  has  degraded  himself  into  a  serf."  But  this  was 
the  belief  of  a  time  still  to  come  when  the  rapid  growth 
of  national  feeling  wThich  this  step  and  its  issues,  did 
more  than  anything  to  foster  made  men  look  back  on 
the  scene  between  John  and  Pandulf  as  a  national  dis- 
honour. We  see  little  trace  of  such  a  feeling  in  the  con- 

O 

temporary  accounts  of  the  time.     All  seem  rather  to  have 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


237 


1214- 
ial6- 


Geoffry 


regarded  it  as  a  complete  settlement  of  the  difficulties  in  CHAP.  1. 
which  king  and  kingdom  were  involved.  As  a  political 
measure  its  success  was  immediate  and  complete.  The 
French  army  at  once  broke  up  in  impotent  rage,  and  when 
Philip  turned  on  the  enemy  John  had  raised  up  for  him 
in  Flanders,  five  hundred  English  ships  under  the  Earl 
of  Salisbury  fell  upon  the  fleet  which  accompanied  the 
French  army  along  the  coast  and  utterly  destroyed  it.  The 
league  which  John  had  so  long  matured  at  once  disclosed 
itself.  Otto,  reinforcing  his  German  army  by  the  knight- 
hood of  Flanders  and  Boulogne  as  well  as  by  a  body  of 
mercenaries  in  the  pay  of  the  English  King,  invaded  France 
from  the  north.  John  called  on  his  baronage  to  follow 
him  over  sea  for  an  attack  on  Philip  from  the  South. 

Their  plea  that  he  remained  excommunicate  was  set 
aside  by  the  arrival  of  Langton  and  his  formal  absolution  l 
of  the  King  on  a  renewal  of  his  coronation  oath  and  a 
pledge  to  put  away  all  evil  customs.  But  the  barons 
still  stood  aloof.  They  would  serve  at  home,  they  said, 
but  they  refused  to  cross  the  sea.  Those  of  the  north 
took  a  more  decided  attitude  of  opposition.  From  this 
point  indeed  the  northern  barons  begin  to  play  their  part 
in  our  constitutional  history.  Lacies,  Vescies,  Percies, 
Stutevilles,  Bruces,  houses  such  as  those  of  de  Ros  or 
de  Vaux,  all  had  sprung  to  greatness  on  the  ruins  of  the 
Mowbrays  and  the  great  houses  of  the  Conquest  and  had 
done  service  to  the  Crown  in  its  strife  with  the  older 
feudatories.  But  loyal  as  was  their  tradition  they  were 
English  to  the  core ;  they  had  neither  lands  nor  interest 
over  sea,  and  they  now  declared  themselves  bound  by  no 
tenure  to  follow  the  King  in  foreign  wars.  Furious  at  this 
check  to  his  plans  John  marched  in  arms  northwards  to 
bring  these  barons  to  submission.  But  he  had  now  to 
reckon  with  a  new  antagonist  in  the  Justiciar,  Geoffry 
Fitz-Peter.  Geoffry  had  hitherto  bent  to  the  King's  will ; 
but  the  political  sagacity  which  he  drew  from  the  school  of 
Henry  the  Second  in  which  he  had  been  trained  showed 


238 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


Stephen 
Langton. 


him  the  need  of  concession,  and  his  wealth,  his  wide  kin- 
ship, and  his  experience  of  affairs  gave  his  interposition  a 
decisive  weight.  He  seized  on  the  political  opportunity 
which  was  offered  by  the  gathering  of  a  Council  at  St. 
Albans  at  the  opening  of  August  with  the  purpose  of 
assessing  the  damages  done  to  the  Church.  Besides  the 
bishops  and  barons,  a  reeve  and  his  four  men  were  sum- 
moned to  this  Council  from  each  royal  demesne,  no  doubt 
simply  as  witnesses  of  the  sums  due  to  the  plundered 
clergy.  Their  presence  however  was  of  great  import.  It  is 
the  first  instance  which  our  history  presents  of  the  sum- 
mons of  such  representatives  to  a  national  Council,  and  the 
instance  took  fresh  weight  from  the  great  matters  which 
came  to  be  discussed.  In  the  King's  name  the  Justiciar 
promised  good  government  for  the  time  to  come,  and  for- 
bade all  royal  officers  to  practise  extortion  as  they  prized 
life  and  limb.  The  King's  peace  was  pledged  to  those 
who  had  opposed  him  in  the  past  ;  and  observance  of 
the  laws  of  Henry  the  First  was  enjoined  upon  all  within 
the  realm. 

But  it  was  not  in  Geoffry  Fitz-Peter  that  English 
free(jom  vvas  t0  fin(j  its  champion  and  the  baronaye  their 
leader.  From  the  moment  of  his  landing  in  England 
Stephen  Langton  had  taken  up  the  constitutional  position 
of  the  Primate  in  upholding  the  old  customs  and  rights 
of  the  realm  against  the  personal  despotism  of  the  kings. 
As  Anselm  had  withstood  William  the  Eed,  as  Theobald 
had  withstood  Stephen,  so  Langton  prepared  to  withstand 
and  rescue  his  country  from  the  tyranny  of  John.  He 
had  already  forced  him  to  swear  to  observe  the  laws 
of  Edward  the  Confessor,  in  other  words  the  traditional 
liberties  of  the  realm.  When  the  baronage  refused  to  sail 
for  Poitou  he  compelled  the  King  to  deal  with  them  not 
by*  arms  but  by  process  of  law.  But  the  work  which  he 
now  undertook  was  far  greater  and  weightier  than  this. 
The  pledges  of  Henry  the  First  had  long  been  forgotten 
when  the  Justiciar  brought  them  to  light,  but  Langton  saw 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


239 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


the  vast  importance  of  such  a  precedent.  At  the  close  of 
the  month  he  produced  Henry's  charter  in  a  fresh  gather- 
ing of  barons  at  St.  Paul's,  and  it  was  at  once  welcomed 
as  a  base  for  the  needed  reforms.  From  London  Lang  ton 
hastened  to  the  King,  whom  he  reached  at  Northampton 
on  his  way  to  attack  the  nobles  of  the  north,  and  wrested 
from  him  a  promise  to  bring  his  strife  with  them  to 
legal  judgement  before  assailing  them  in  arms.  With 
his  allies  gathering  abroad  John  had  doubtless  no  wish 
to  be  entangled  in-  a  long  quarrel  at  home,  and  the 
Archbishop's  mediation  allowed  him  to  withdraw  with 
seeming  dignity.  After  a  demonstration  therefore  at 
Durham  John  marched  hastily  south  again,  and  reached 
London  in  October.  His  Justiciar  at  once  laid  before  him 
the  claims  of  the  Councils  of  St.  Alban's  and  St.  Paul's ; 
but  the  death  of  Geoffry  at  this  juncture  freed  him  from 
the  pressure  which  his  minister  was  putting  upon  him. 
"  Now,  by  God's  feet,"  cried  John,  "  I  am  for  the  first 
time  King  and  Lord  of  England,"  and  he  entrusted  the 
vacant  justieiarship  to  a  Poitevin,  Peter  des  Bodies,  the 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  whose  temper  was  in  harmony 
with  his  own.  But  the  death  of  Geoffry  only  called  the 
Archbishop  to  the  front,  and  Langton  at  once  demanded 
the  King's  assent  to  the  Charter  of  Henry  the  First.  In 
seizing  on  this  Charter  as  a  basis  for  national,  action 
Langton  showed  a  political  ability  of  the  highest  order. 
The  enthusiasm  with  which  its  recital  was  welcomed 
showed  the  sagacity  with  which  the  Archbishop  had 
chosen  his  ground.  From  that  moment  the  baronage 
was  no  longer  drawn  together  in  secret  conspiracies  by  a 
sense  of  common  wrong  or  a  vague  longing  for  common 
deliverance :  they  were  openly  united  in  a  definite  claim 
of  national  freedom  and  national  law. 

John  could  as  yet  only  meet  the  claim  by  delay.     His  BOUVIMK 
policy  had  still  to  wait  for  its  fruits  at  Borne,  his  diplomacy 
to   reap  its  harvest   in  Flanders,  ere  he  could  deal  with 
England.     From  the  hour  of  his  submission  to  the  Papacy 


240 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


Rising  of 
the 


his  one  thought  had  been  that  of  vengeance  on  the  barons 
who,  as  he  held,  had  betrayed  him ;  but  vengeance  was 
impossible  till  he  should  return  a  conqueror  from  the  fields 
of  France:  It  was  a  sense  of  this  danger  which  nerved 
the  baronage  to  their  obstinate  refusal  to  follow  him  over 
sea :  but  furious  as  he  was  at  their  resistance,  the  Arch- 
bishop's interposition  condemned  John  still  to  wait  for 
the  hour  of  his  revenge.  In  the  spring  of  1214  he  crossed 
with  what  forces  he  could  gather  to  Poitou,  rallied  its 
nobles  round  him,  passed  the  Loire  in  triumph,  and  won 
back  aciain  Anders,  the  home  of  his  race.  At  the  same 

o  o         * 

time  Oito  and  ths  Count  of  Flanders,  their  German  and 
Flemish  knighthood  strengthened  by  reinforcements  from 
Boulogne  as  well  as  by  a  body  of  English  troops  under  the 
Earl  of  Salisbury,  threatened  France  from  the  north.  For 
the  moment  Philip  seemed  lost :  arid  yet  on  the  fortunes  of 
Philip  hung  the  fortunes  of  English  freedom.  But  in  this 
crisis  of  her  fate,  France  was  true  to  herself  and  her  King. 
From  every  borough  of  Northern  France  the  townsmen 
marched  to  his  rescue,  and  the  village  priests  led  their 
nocks  to  battle  with  the  Church-banners  Hying  at  their 
head.  The  two  armies  met  at  the  close  of  July  near  the 
bridge  of  Bouvines,  between  Lille  and  Tournay,  and  from 
the  first  the  day  went  against  the  allies.  The  Flemish 
knights  were  the  first  to  fly ;  then  the  Germans  in  the 
centre  of  the  host  were  crushed  by  the  overwhelming 
numbers  of  the  French ;  last  of  all  the  English  on  the  right 
of  it  were  broken  by  a  fierce  onset  of  the  Bishop  of 
Beauvais  who  charged  inace  in  hand  and  struck  the  Earl 
of  Salisbury  to  the  ground.  The  news  of  this  complete 
overthrow  reached  John  in  the  midst  of  his  triumphs  in 
the  South,  and  scattered  his  hopes  to  the  winds.  He  was 
at  once  deserted  "by  the  Poitevin  nobles  ;  and  a  hasty 
retreat  alone  enabled  him  to  return  in  October,  baffled 
and  humiliated,  to  his  island  kingdom. 

His  return  forced  on  the  crisis  to  which  events  had  so 


Baronage,  long  been  drifting.     The  victory  at  Bouvines  gave  strength 


III.] 


THE  CHAETER.     1204—1291. 


241 


to  his  opponents.  The  open  resistance  of  the  northern 
Barons  nerved  the  rest  of  their  order  to  action.  The 
great  houses  who  had  cast  away  their  older  feudal  tra- 
ditions for  a  more  national  policy  were  drawn  by  the 
crisis  into  close  union  with  the  families  which  had 
sprung  from  the  ministers  and  councillors  of  the  two 
Henries.  To  the  first  group  belonged  such  men  as  Saher 
de  Quinci,  the  Earl  of  Winchester,  Geoffrey  of  Mande- 
ville,  Earl  of  Essex,  the  Earl  of  Clare,  Fulk  Fitz-Warin, 
William  Mallet,  the  houses  of  Fitz-Alan  and  Gant.  Among 
the  second  group  were  Henry  Bohun  and  Eoger  Bigod,  the 
Earls  of  Hereford  and  Norfolk,  the  younger  William  Mar- 
shal, and  Robert  de  Vere.  Eobert  Fitz- Walter,  who  took 
the  command  of  their  united  force,  represented  both  par- 
ties equally,  for  he  was  sprung  from  the  Norman  house  of 
Brionne,  while  the  Justiciar  of  Henry  the  Second,  Richard 
de  Lucy,  had  been  his  grandfather.  Secretly,  and  on  the 
pretext  of  pilgrimage,  these  nobles  met  at  St.  Edmunds- 
bury,  resolute  to  bear  no  longer  with  John's  delays.  If 
he  refused  to  restore  their  liberties  they  swore  to  make 
war  on  him  till  he  confirmed  them  by  Charter  under  the 
King's  seal,  and  they  parted  to  raise  forces  with  the  pur- 
pose of  presenting  their  demands  at  Christmas.  John, 
knowing  nothing  of  the  coming  storm,  pursued  his  policy 
of  winning  over  the  Church  by  granting  it  freedom  of 
election,  while  he  embittered  still  more  the  strife  with  his 
nobles  by  demanding  scutage  from  the  northern  nobles  who 
had  refused  to  follow  him  to  Poitou.  But  the  barons  were 
now  ready  to  act,  and  earl}'  in  January  in  the  memorable . 
year  1215  they  appeared  in  arms  to  lay,  as  they  had 
planned,  their  demands  before  the  King. 

John  was  taken  by  surprize.  He  asked  for  a  truce 
till  Easter-tide,  and  spent  the  interval  in  fevered  efforts 
to  avoid  the  blow.  Again  he  ottered  freedom  to  the 
Church,  and  took  vows  as  a  Crusader  against  whom  war 
was  a  sacrilege,  while  he  called  for  a  general  oath  of 
allegiance  and  fealty  from  the  whole  body  of  his  subjects. 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214- 
1216. 


John 
deserted. 


242  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  But  month  after  month  only  showed  the  King  the 
John.  uselessness  of  further  resistance.  Though  Pandulf  was 
1214-  with  him,  his  vassalage  had  as  yet  brought  little  fruit 
iai6'  jn  the  way  of  aid  from  Eome  ;  the  commissioners  whom 
he  sent  to  plead  his  cause  at  the  shire-courts  brought 
back  news  that  no  man  would  help  him  against  the 
charter  that  the  barons  claimed :  and  his  efforts  to  de- 
tach the  clergy  from  the  league  of  his  opponents  utterly 
failed.  The  nation  was  against  the  King.  He  was  far 
indeed  from  being  utterly  deserted.  His  ministers  still 
clung  to  him,  men  such  as  Geoffrey  de  Lucy,  Geoffrey  de 
Furnival,  Thomas  Basset,  and  William  Briwere,  statesmen 
trained  in  the  administrative  school  of  his  father  and  who, 
dissent  as  they  might  from  John's  mere  oppression,  still 
looked  on  the  power  of  the  Crown  as  the  one  barrier 
against  feudal  anarchy  :  and  beside  them  stood  some  of 
the  great  nobles  of  royal  blood,  his  father's  bastard  Earl 
William  of  Salisbury,  his  cousin  Earl  William  of  Warenne, 
and  Henry  Earl  of  Cornwall,  a  grandson  of  Henry  the  First. 
With  him  too  remained  Kanulf,  Earl  of  Chester,  and  the 
wisest  and  noblest  of  the  barons,  William  Marshal  the 
elder,  Earl  of  Pembroke.  William  Marshal  had  shared  in 
the  rising  of  the  younger  Henry  against  Henry  the  Second, 
and  stood  by  him  as  he  died  ;  he  had  shared  in  the  over- 
throw of  William  Longcharnp  and  in  the  outlawry  of  John. 
He  was  now  an  old  man,  firm,  as  we  shall  see  in  his  after- 
course,  to  recall  the  government  to  the  path  of  freedom 
and  law,  but  shrinking  from,  a  strife  which  might  bring 
back  the  anarchy  of  Stephen's  day,  and  looking  for  reforms 
rather  in  the  bringing  constitutional  pressure  to  bear  upon 
the  King  than  in  forcing  them  from  him  by  arms. 
John  p,ut  cling  as  such  men  might  to  John,  they  clung 
yte  s'  to  him  rather  as  mediators  than  adherents.  Their 
sympathies  went  with  the  demands  of  the  barons 
when  the  delay  which  had  been  granted  was  over 
and  the  nobles  again  gathered  in  arms  at  Brackley  in 
Northamptonshire  to  lay  their  claims  before  the  King. 


Hi.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  243 

Nothing  marks    more    strongly   the    absolutely  despotic    CHAP.  I. 
idea  of  his  sovereignty  which  John  had  formed  than  the       j7ta. 
passionate  surprize  which  breaks  out  in  his  reply.     "  Why      1214- 
do  they  not  ask  for  my   kingdom  ? "   he   cried.     "  I    will      X?A?" 
never   grant   such  liberties  as  will  make   me   a  slave  ! " 
The   imperialist   theories   of  the   lawyers   of  his   father's 
court   had  done  their  work.     Held  at  bay  by  the  prac- 
tical sense  of   Henry,  they  had  told  on  the  more  head- 
strong  nature  of    his    sons.      Eichard    and    John   both 
held   with  Glanvill  that  the  will  of  the  prince  was  the 
law  of  the  land ;  and  to  fetter  that  will  by  the  customs 
and   franchises   which    were    embodied    in    the    barons' 
claims   seemed  to   John  a  monstrous  usurpation   of  his 
rights.      13 ut   no    imperialist    theories    had    touched   the 
minds  of  his  people.     The  country  rose  as  one  man  at  his 
refusal.      At  the  close  of  May  London  threw  open  her 
gates  to  the  forces  of  the  barons,  now  arrayed  under  Eobert 
Fitz- Walter  as  "  Marshal  of  the  Army  of  God  and  Holy 
Church."     Exeter  and  Lincoln  followed  the   example   of 
the   capital ;    promises  of  aid   came   from   Scotland   and 
Wales;  the  northern  barons  marched  hastily  under  Eustace 
de   Vesci  to  join  their  comrades  in   London.     Even  the( 
nobles  who  had  as  yet  clung  to  the  King,  but  whose  hopes 
of  conciliation  were  blasted  by  his  obstinacy,  yielded  at 
last  to  the  summons  of  the  "  Army  of  God."     Pandulf 
indeed  and  Archbishop  Langton  still  remained  with  John, 
but  they  counselled  as  Earl  Eanulf  and  William  Marshal 
counselled    his    acceptance    of    the    Charter.     None     in 
fact  counselled  its  rejection  save  his  new  Justiciar,   the 
Poitevin  Peter  des  Eoches,  and  other  foreigners  who  knew 
the  barons  purposed  driving  them  from   the   land.     But 
even  the  number  of  these  was  'small ;  there  was  a  moment 
when  John  found  himself  with  but  seven  knights  at  his 
back  and  before  him  a  nation  in  arms.     Quick  as  he  was, 
he  had  been  taken  utterly  by  surprize.     It  was  in  vain 
that  in  the  short  respite  he  had  gained  from  Christmas  to 
Easter  he   had   summoned   mercenaries   to   his   aid   and 


244  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.     appealed  to  his  new  suzerain,  the  Pope.     Summons  and 
John       appeal  were  alike  too  late.     Nursing  wrath  in  his  heart, 
1214-     John  bowed  to  necessity  and  called  the  barons  to  a  con- 
1216.      ference  on  an  island  in  the  Thames,  between  Windsor  and 
Staines,  near  a  marshy  meadow  by  the  river  side,   the 
meadow   of   Runnymede.     The   King   encamped   on   one 
bank  of  the  river,  the  barons  covered  the  flat  of  Eunny- 
mede  on  the  other.     Their   delegates  met  on    the    15th 
of  July  in  the  island  between  them,   but  the  negotia- 
ations  were   a  mere   cloak  to   cover  John's   purpose   of 
unconditional   submission.     The  Great   Charter  was  dis- 
cussed and  agreed  to  in  a  single  day. 
The  Great       Copies  of  it  were  made  and  sent  for  preservation  to  the 

Charter,  cathedrals  and  churches,  and  one  copy  may  still  be  seen 
in  the  British  Museum,  injured  by  age  and  fire,  but  with 
the  royal  seal  still  hanging  from  the  brown,  shrivelled 
parchment.  It  is  impossible  to  gaze  without  reverence 
on  the  earliest  monument  of  English  freedom  which  we 
can  see  with  our  own  eyes  and  touch  with  our  own 
hands,  the  great  Charter  to  which  from  age  to  age  men 
have  looked  back  as  the  groundwork  of  English  liberty. 
But  in  itself  the  Charter  was  no  novelty,  nor  did  it  claim 
to  establish  any  new  constitutional  principles.  The 
Charter  of  Henry  the  First  formed  the  basis  of  the 
whole,  and  the  additions  to  it  are  for  the  most  part  formal 
recognitions  of  the  judicial  and  administrative  changes 
introduced  by  Henry  the  Second.  What  was  new  in  it 
was  its  origin.  In  form,  like  the  Charter  on  which  it 
was  based,  it  was  nothing  but  a  royal  grant.  In  actual  fact 
it  was  a  treaty  between  the  whole  English  people  and  its 
king.  In  it  England  found  itself  for  the  first  time  since 
the  Conquest  a  nation  bound  together  by  common  national 
interests,  by  a  common  national  sympathy.  In  words 
which  almost  close  the  Charter,  the  "community  of  the 
whole  land  "  is  recognized  as  the  great  body  from  which 
the  restraining  power  of  the  baronage  takes  its  validity. 
There  is  no  distinction  of  blood  or  class,  of  Norman  or  not 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


245 


Norman,  of  noble  or  not  noble.  All  are  recognized  as 
Englishmen,  the  rights  of  all  are  owned  as  English  rights. 
Bishops  and  nobles  claimed  and  secured  at  Runnyniede 
the  rights  not  of  baron  and  churchman  only  but  those  of 
freeholder  and  merchant,  of  townsman  and  villein.  The 
provisions  against  wrong  and  extortion  which  the  barons 
drew  up  as  against  the  King  for  themselves  they  drew  up 
as  against  themselves  for  their  tenants.  Based  too  as  it 
professed  to  be  on  Henry's  Charter  it  was  far  from  being  a 
mere  copy  of  what  had  gone  before.  The  vague  expressions 
of  the  old  Charter  were  now  exchanged  for  precise  and 
elaborate  provisions.  The  bonds  of  unwritten  custom 
which  the  older  grant  did  little  more  than  recognize  had 
proved  too  weak  to  hold  the  An<_;evins ;  and  the  baronage 
set  them  aside  for  the  restraints  of  written  aiid  defined 
law.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  Great  Charter  marks  the 
transition  from  the  age  of  traditional  rights,  preserved  in 
the  nation's  memory  and  officially  declared  by  the  Primate, 
to  the  age  of  written  legislation,  of  Parliaments  and 
Statutes,  which  was  to  come. 

Its  opening  indeed  is  in  general  terms.  The  Church 
had  shown  its  power  of  self-defence  in  the  struggle  over 
the  interdict,  and  the  clause  which  recognized  its  rights 
alone  retained  the  older  and  general  form.  But  all  vague- 
ness ceases  when  the  Charter  passes  on  to  deal  with  the 
rights  of  Englishmen  at  large,  their  right  to  justice,  to 
security  of  person  and  property,  to  good  government.  "No 
freeman,"  ran  a  memorable  article  that  lies  at  the  base  of 
our  whole  judicial  system,  "shall  be  seized  or  imprisoned, 
or 'dispossessed,  or  outlawed,  or  in  any  way  brought  to  ruin: 
we  will  not  go  against  any  man  nor  send  against  him,  save 
by  legal  judgement  of  his  peers  or  by  the  law  of  the  land." 
"  To  no  man  will  we  sell,"  runs  another,  "  or  deny,  or 
delay,  right  or  justice."  The  great  reforms  of  the  past 
reigns  were  now  formally  recognized;  judges  of  assize 
were  to  hold  their  circuits  four  times  in  the  year,  and  the 
Court  was  no  longer  to  follow  the  King  in  his 

VOL.  I.— 17 


CHAP.  I. 
John. 

1214 
1216. 


King's 


246  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  wanderings  over  the  realm  but  to  sit  in  a  fixed  place 
John.  But  the  denial  of  justice  under  John  was  a  small  danger 
1214-  compared  with  the  lawless  exactions  both  of  himself  and 
X?I?'  his  predecessor.  Richard  had  increased  the  amount  of 
the  scutage  which  Henry  the  Second  had  introduced,  and 
applied  it  to  raise  funds  for  his  ransom.  He  had  restored 
the  Danegeld,  or  land-tax,  so  often  abolished,  under  the 
new  name  of  "  carucage,"  had  seized  the  wool  of  the 
Cistercians  and  the  plate  of  the  churches,  and  rated  mov- 
ables as  well  as  land.  John  had  again  raised  the  rate  of 
scutage,  and  imposed  aids,  fines,  and  ransoms  at  his  pleasure 
without  counsel  of  the  baronage.  The  Great  Charter  met 
this  abuse  by  a  piovision  on  which  our  constitutional 
system  rests.  "  No  scutage  or  aid  [other  than  the  three 
customary  feudal  aids]  shall  be  imposed  in  our  realm  save 
by  the  common  council  of  the  realm  ; "  and  to  this  Great 
Council  it  was  provided  that  prelates  and  the  greater 
barons  should  be  summoned  by  special  writ  and  all 
tenants  in  chief  through  the  sheriffs  and  bailiffs  at  least 
forty  days  before.  The  provision  defined  what  had  pro- 
bably been  the  common  usage  of  the  realm ;  but  the  defi- 
nition turned  it  into  a  national  right,  a  right  so  momen- 
tous that  on  it  rests  our  whole  Parliamentary  life.  Even 
the  baronage  seem  to  have  been  startled  when  they  realized 
the  extent  of  their  claim ;  and  the  provision  was  dropped 
from  the  later  issue  of  the  Charter  at  the  outset  of  the 
next  reign.  But  the  clause  brought  home  to  the  nation 
at  large  their  possession  of  a  right  which  became  dearer 
as  years  went  by.  More  and  more  clearly  the  nation 
discovered  that  in  these  simple  words  lay  the  secret  of 
political  power.  It  was  the  right  of  self-taxation  that 
England  fought  for  under  Earl  Simon  as  she  fought 
for  it  under  Hampden.  It  was  the  establishment  of  this 
right  which  established  English  freedom. 

The  rights  which  the  barons  claimed  for  themselves  they 
claimed  for  the  nation  at  large.  The  boon  of  free  and 
unbought  justice  was  a  boon  for  all,  but  a  special 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


247 


provision  protected  the  poor.  The  forfeiture  of  the 
freeman  on  conviction  of  felony  was  never  to  include 
his  tenement,  or  that  of  the  merchant  his  wares,  or  that 
of  the  countryman,  as  Henry  the  Second  had  long  since 
ordered,  his  wain.  The  means  of  actual  livelihood  were  to 
be  left  even  to  the  worst.  The  seizure  of  provisions,  the 
exaction  of  forced  labour,  by  royal  officers  was  forbidden ; 
and  the  abuses  of  the  forest  system  were  checked  by  a 
clause  which  disafforested  all  forests  made  in  John's  reign. 
The  under-tenants  were  protected  against  all  lawless  ex- 
actions of  their  lords  in  precisely  the  same  terms  as  these 
were  protected  against  the  lawless  exactions  ot  the  Crown. 
The  towns  were  secured  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  muni- 
cipal privileges,  their  freedom  from  arbitrary  taxation,  their 
rights  of  justice,  of  common  deliberation,  of  regulation  of 
trade.  "  Let  the  city  of  London  have  all  its  old  liberties 
and  its  free  customs,  as  well  by  land  as  by  water.  Besides 
this,  we  wiJ  and  grant  that  all  other  cities,  and  boroughs, 
and  towns,  and  ports,  have  all  their  liberties  and  free 
customs."  The  influence  of  the  trading  class  is  seen  in 
two  other  enactments  by  which  freedom  of  journeying  and 
trade  was  secured  to  foreign  merchants  and  an  unifor- 
mity of  weights  and  measures  was  ordered  to  be  enforced 
throughout  the  realm. 

There  remained  only  one  question,  and  that  the  most 
difficult  of  all;  the  question  how  to  secure  this  order 
which  the  Charter  established  in  the  actual  government  of 
the  realm.  It  was  easy  to  sweep  away  the  immediate 
abuses ;  the  hostages  were  restored  to  their  homes,  the 
foreigners  banished  by  a  clause  in  the  Charter  from  the 
country.  But  it  was  less  easy  to  provide  means  for  the 
control  of  a  King  whom  no  man  could  trust.  By  the 
treaty  as  settled  at  Kunnymede  a  council  of  twenty-four 
barons  were  to  be  chosen  from  the  general  body  of  their 
order  to  enforce  on  John  the  observance  of  the  Charter 
with  the  right  of  declaring  war  on  the  King  should  its 
provisions  be  infringed,  and  it  was  provided  that  the  Charter 


CHAP;!. 
John. 

121-4 
1216. 


248 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  I.  should  not  only  be  published  throughout  the  whole  country 
jdhi  but  sworn  to  at  every  hundred-mote  and  town-mote  by 
1214-  order  from  the  King.  "  They  have  given  me  four- 
iai6>  and-twenty  over-kings,"  cried  John  in  a  burst  of  fury, 
flinging  himself  on  the  floor  and  gnawing  sticks  and 
straw  in  his  impotent  rage.  But  the  rage  soon  passed 
into  the  subtle  policy  of  which  he  was  a  master.  After 
a  few  days  he  left  Windsor;  and  lingered  for  months 
along  the  southern  shore,  waiting  for  news  of  the  aid 
he  had  solicited  from  Eome  and  from  the  Continent. 
It  was  not  without  definite  purpose  that  he  had  become 
the  vassal  of  the  Papacy.  While  Innocent  wras  dream- 
ing of  a  vast  Christian  Empire  with  the  Pope  at  its 
head  to  enforce  justice  and  religion  on  his  under-kings, 
John  believed  that  the  Papal  protection  would  enable  him 
to  rule  as  tyrannically  as  he  would.  The  thunders  of  the 
Papacy  were  to  be  ever  at  hand  for  his  protection,  as  the 
armies  of  England  are  at  hand  to  protect  the  vileness  and 
oppression  of  a  Turkish  Sultan  or  a  Nizam  of  Hyderabad. 
His  envoys  were  already  at  Eome,  pleading  for  a  con- 
demnation of  the  Charter.  The  after  action  of  the  Papacy 
shows  that  Innocent  was  moved  by  no  hostility  to  English 
freedom.  But  he  was  indignant  that  a  matter  which 
might  have  been  brought  before  his  court  of  appeal  as 
overlord  should  have  been  dealt  with  by  armed  revolt, 
and  in  this  crisis  both  his  imperious  pride  and  the  legal 
tendency  of  his  mind  swayed  him  to  the  side  of  the 
King  who  submitted  to  his  justice.  He  annulled  the 
Great  Charter  by  a  bull  in  August,  and  at  the  close  of 
the  year  excommunicated  the  barons. 

His  suspension  of  Stephen  Langton  from  the  exercize 
of  his  office  as  Primate  was  a  more  fatal  blow.  Langton 
hurried  to  Eome,  and  his  absence  left  the  barons  with- 
out a  head  at  a  moment  when  the  very  success  of  their 
efforts  was  dividing  them.  Their  forces  were  already 
disorganized  when  autumn  brought  a  host  of  foreign 
soldiers  from  over  sea  to  the  King's  standard.  After 


Landing 
of  Lewis. 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204-^-1291. 


249 


starving  Rochester  into  submission  John  found  himself 
strong  enough  to  march  ravaging  through  the  Midland 
and  Northern  counties,  while  his  mercenaries  spread  like 
locusts  over  the  whole  face  of  the  laud.  From  Berwick 
the  King  turned  back  triumphant  to  coop  up  his  enemies 
in  London  while  fresh  Papal  excommunications  fell  on 
the  barons  and  the  city.  But  the  burghers  set  Innocent  at 
defiance.  "The  ordering  of  secular  matters  appertaineth 
not  to  the  Pope,"  they  said,  in  words  that  seem  like  mut- 
terings  of  the  coming  Lollardism;  and  at  the  advice  of 
Simon  Langton,  the  Archbishop's  brother,  bells  swung  out 
and  mass  was  celebrated  as  before.  Success  however  was 
impossible  for  the  undisciplined  militia  of  the  country  and 
the  towns  against  the  trained  forces  of  the  King,  and 
despair  drove  the  barons  to  listen  to  Fitz-W alter  and  the 
French  party  in  their  ranks,  and  to  seek  aid  from  over  sea. 
Philip  had  long  been  waiting  the  opportunity  for  his  re- 
venge upon  John.  In  the  April  of  1216  his  son  Lewis  ac- 
cepted the  ciown  in  spite  of  Innocent's  excommunications, 
and  landed  soon  after  in  Kent  with  a  considerable  force. 
As  the  barons  had  foreseen,  the  French  mercenaries  who 
constituted  John's  host  refused  to  fight  against  the  French 
sovereign  and  the  whole  aspect  of  affairs  was  suddenly 
reversed.  Deserted  by  the  bulk  of  his  troops,  the  King 
was  forced  to  fall  rapidly  back  on  the  Welsh  Marches,  while 
his  rival  entered  London  and  received  the  submission  of 
the  larger  part  of  England.  Only  Dover  held  out  obstinately 
against  Lewis,  By  a  series  of  rapid  marches  John  suc- 
ceeded in  distracting  the  plans  of  the  barons  and  in 
relieving  Lincoln  ;  then  after  a  short  stay  at  Lynn  he 
crossed  the  Wash  in  a  fresh  movement  to  the  north.  In 
crossing  however  his  army  was  surprized  by  the  tide,  and 
his  baggage  with  the  royal  treasures  washed  away.  Fever 
seized  the  baffled  tyrant  as  he  reached  the  Abbey  of 
Swineshead,  his  sickness  was  inflamed  by  a  gluttonous 
debauch,  and  on  the  19th  of  October  John  breathed  bis 
last  at  Newark. 


CHAP.  1. 
John. 

1214 


CHAPTER  II. 

HENRY  THE  THIRD. 
1216-1232. 

William  THE  death  of  John  changed  the  whole  face  of  English  affairs, 
ta  '  His  son,  Henry  of  Winchester,  was  but  nine  years  old,  and 
the  pity  which  was  stirred  by  the  child's  helplessness  was 
aided  by  a  sense  of  injustice  in  burthening  him  with  the 
iniquity  of  his  father.  At  his  death  John  had  driven  from 
his  side  even  the  most  loyal  of  his  barons;  but  William 
Marshal  had  clung  to  him  to  the  last,  and  with  him  was 
Gualo,  the  Legate  of  Innocent's  successor,  Honorius  the 
Third.  The  position  of  Gualo  as  representative  of  the 
Papal  over-lord  of  the  realm  was  of  the  highest  importance, 
and  his  action  showed  the  real  attitude  of  Eome  towards 
English  freedom.  The  boy- king  was  hardly  crowned  at 
Gloucester  when  Legate  and  Earl  issued  in  his  name  the 
very  Charter  against  which  his  father  had  died  fighting. 
Only  the  clauses  which  regulated  taxation  and  the  summon- 
ing of  parliament  were  as  yet  declared  to  be  suspended. 
The  choice  of  William  Marshal  as  "governor  of  King 
and  kingdom"  gave  weight  to  this  step  ;  and  its  effrct  was 
seen  when  the  contest  was  renewed  in  1217.  Lewis  was 
at  first  successful  in  the  eastern  counties,  but  the  political 
reaction  waS  aided  by  jealousies  which  broke  out  between 
'the  English  and  French  nobles  in  his  force,  and  the 
first  drew  gradually  away  from  him.  So  general  was 
the  -defection  that  at  the  opening  of  summer  William 
Marshal  felt  himself  strong  enough  for  a  blow  at  his  foes 


BOOK  ill.]          THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  251 


Lewis  himself  was  investing  Dover  and  a  joint  army  of 
French  and  English  barons  under  the  Count  of  Perche 
and  Eobert  Fitz-Walter  was  besieging  Lincoln  when 
gathering  troops  rapidly  from  the  royal  castles  the  regent 
marched  to  the  relief  of  the  latter  town.  Cooped  up  in 
its  narrow  streets  and  attacked  at  once  by  the  Earl  and 
the  garrison,  the  barons  fled  in  utter  rout ;  the  Count  of 
Perche  fell  on  the  field,  Eobert  Eitz- Walter  was  taken 
prisoner.  Lewis  at  once  retreated  on  London  and  called 
for  aid  from  France.  But  a  more  terrible  defeat  crushed 
his  remaining  hopes.  A  small  English  fleet  which  set  sail 
from  Dover  under  Hubert  de  Burgh  fell  boldly  on  the  re- 
inforcements which  were  crossing  under  escort  of  Eustace 
the  Monk,  a  well-known  freebooter  of  the  Channel.  Some 
incidents  of  the  fight  light  up  for  us  the  naval  warfare  of 
the  time.  From  the  decks  of  the  English  vessels  bowmen 
poured  their  arrows  into  the  crowded  transports,  others 
hurled  quicklime  into  their  enemies'  faces,  while  the  more 
active  vessels  crashed  with  their  armed  grows  into  the  sides 
of  the  French  ships.  The  skill  of  the  mariners  of  the 
Cinque  Ports  turned  the  day  against  the  larger  force  s  of  their 
opponents,  and  the  fleet  of  Eustace  was  utterly  destroyed. 
The  royal  army  at  once  closed  upon  London,  but  resistance 
was  really  at  an  end.  By  a  treaty  concluded  at  Lambeth 
in  September  Lewis  promised  to  withdraw  from  England 
on  payment  of  a  sum  which  he  claimed  as  debt ;  his 
adherents  were  restored  to  their  possessions,  the  liberties 
of  London  and  other  towns  confirmed,  and  the  prisoners 
on  either  side  set  at  liberty.  A  fresh  issue  of  the  Charter, 
though  in  its  modified  form,  proclaimed  yet  more  clearly 
the  temper  and  policy  of  the  Earl  Marshal. 

His  death  at  the  opening  of  1219,  after  a  year  spent  in  Hubert  dc 
giving  order  to  the  realm,  brought  no  change  in  the  system 
he  had  adopted.  The  control  of  affairs  passed  into  the 
hands  of  a  new  legate,  Pandulf,  of  Stephen  Langton  who 
had  just  returned  forgiven  from  Eome,  and  of  the  Justiciar, 
Hubert  de  Burgh.  It  was  a  time  of  transition,  and  the 


252 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II.    temper    of    the    Justiciar    was     eminently    transitional. 
Henry" the  Bred   iii   the   school  of   Henry   the  Second,  Hubert  had 

Third. 


1216 
1232. 


little  sympathy  with  national  freedom,  and  though  reso- 
lute to  maintain  the  Charter  he  can  have  had  small  love 
for  it ;  his  conception  of  good  government,  like  that  of  his 
master,  lay  in  a  wise  personal  administration,  in  the  pre- 
servation of  order  and  law.  But  he  combined  with  this  a 
thoroughly  English  desire  for  national  independence,  a  hatred 
of  foreigners,  and  a  reluctance  to  waste  English  blood  and 
treasure  in  Continental  struggles.  Able  as  he  proved  him- 
self, his  task  was  one  of  no  common  difficulty.  He  was 
hampered  by  the  constant  interference  of  Rome.  A  Papal 
legate  resided  at  the  English  court,  and  claimed  a  share 
in  the  administration  of  the  realm  as  the  representative  of 
its  over-lord  and  as  guardian  of  the  young  sovereign. 
A  foreign  party  too  had  still  a  footing  in  the  kingdom,  for 
William  Marshal  had  been  unable  to  rid  himself  of  men 
like  Peter  des  Roches  or  Faukes  de  Breaute,  who  had  fought 
on  the  royal  side  in  the  struggle  against  Lewis.  Hubert 
had  to  deal  too  with  the  anarchy  which  that  struggle 
left  behind  it.  From  the  time  of  the  Conquest  the  centre 
of  England  had  been  covered  with  the  domains  of  great 
houses,  whose  longings  were  for  feudal  independence  and 
whose  spirit  of  revolt  had  been  held  in  check  partly  by 
the  stern  rule  of  the  Kings  and  partly  by  the  rise  of  a 
baronage  sprung  from  the  Court  and  settled  for  the  most 
part  in  the  North.  The  oppression  of  John  united  both 
the  earlier  and  these  newer  houses  in  the  struggle  for  the 
Charter.  But  the  character  of  each  remained  unchanged, 
and  the  close  of  the  struggle  saw  the  feudal  party  break 
out  in  their  old  lawlessness  and  defiance  of  the  Crown. 

For  a  time  the  anarchy  of  Stephen's  days  seemed  to 
•  revive.  But  the  Justiciar  was  resolute  to  crush  it,  and  lie 
was  backed  by  the  strenuous  efforts  of  Stephen  Langton.  A 
new  and  solemn  coronation  of  the  young  King  in  1220 
was  followed  by  a  demand  for  the  restoration  of  the  royal 
castles  which  had  been  seized  by  the  barons  and  foreigners. 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204-1291.  253 

The  Earl  of  Chester,  the  head  of  the  feudal  baronage,  though  CHAP.  II. 
he  rose  in  armed  rebellion,  quailed  before  the  march  of  HenrjTthe 
Hubert  and  the  Primate's  threats  of  excommunication.  A  Third- 
more  formidable  foe  remained  in  the  Frenchman,  Faukes  de  HasT. 
Breaute,  the  sheriff  of  six  counties,  with  six  royal  castles 
in  his  hands,  and  allied  both  with  the  rebel  barons  and 
Llewelyn  of  Wales.  But  in  1224  his  castle  of  Bedford 
was  besieged  for  two  months ;  and  on  its  surrender  the 
stern  justice  of  Hubert  hung  the  twenty-four  knights  and 
their  retainers  who  formed  the  garrison  before  its  walls. 
The  blow  was  effectual ;  the  royal  castles  were  surrendeied 
by  the  barons,  and  the  land  was  once  more  at  peace.  Freed 
from  foreign  soldiery,  the  country  was  freed  also  from  the 
presence  of  the  foreign  legate.  Langton  wrested  a  promise 
from  Koine  that  so  long  as  he  lived  no  future  legate  should 
be  sent  to  England,  and  with  Pandulf's  resignation  in  1221 
the  direct  interference  of  the  Papacy  in  the  government  of 
the  realm  came  to  an  end.  But  even  these  services  of  the 
Primate  were  small  compared  with  his  services  to  English 
freedom.  Throughout  his  life  the  Charter  was  the  first 
object  of  his  care.  The  omission  of  the'  articles  which 
restricted  the  royal  power  over  taxation  in  the  Charter 
which  was  published  at  Henry's  accession  in  1216  was 
doubtless  due  to  the  Archbishop's  absence  and  disgrace 
at  Home.  The  suppression  of  disorder  seems  to  have 
revived  the  older  spirit  of  resistance  among  the  royal 
ministers;  for  when  Laugton  demanded  afresh  confirmation 
of  the  Charter  in  Parliament  at  London  William  Brewer, 
one  of  the  King's  councillors,  protested  that  it  had  been 
extorted  by  force  and  was  without  legal  validity.  "If 
you  loved  the  King,  William,"  the  Primate  burst  out  in 
anger,  "you  would  not  throw  a  stumblingblock  in  the  way 
of  the  peace  of  the  realm."  The  young  King  was  cowed 
by  the  Archbishop's  wrath,  and  promised  observance  of 
the  Charter.  But  it  may  have  been  their  consciousness  of 
such  a  temper  among  the  royal  councillors  that  made 
Langton  and  the  baronage  demand  two  years  later  a  fresh 


254 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


State  of 

the 
Church. 


CHAP.  II.  promulgation  of  the  Charter  as  the   price  of  a  subsidy, 
HenrTthe  anc^  Henry's  assent  established  the  principle,  so  fruitful  of 

Third.       constitutional  results,  that  redress  of  wrongs  precedes   a 

laaaT      grant  to  the  Crown. 

These  repeated  sanctions  of  the  Charter  and  the  govern- 
ment of  the  realm  year  after  year  in  accordance  with  its  pro- 
visions were  gradually  bringing  the  new  freedom  home  to 
the  mass  of  Englishmen.  But  the  sense  of  liberty  was  at 
this  time  quickened  and  intensified  by  a  religious  movement 
which  stirred  English  society  to  its  depths.  Never  had  the 
priesthood  wielded  such  boundless  power  over  Christ- 
endom as  in  the  days  of  Innocent  the  Third  and  his 
immediate  successors.  But  its  religious  hold  on  the 
people  was  loosening  day  by  day.  The  old  reverence  for 
the  Papacy  was  fading  away  before  the  universal  resent- 
ment at  its  political  ambition,  its  lavish  use  of  interdict 
and  excommunication  for  purely  secular  ends,  its  degrada- 
tion of  the  most  sacred  sentences  into  means  of  financial 
extortion.  In  Italy  the  struggle  that  was  opening  between 
Rome  and  Frederick  the  Second  disclosed  a  spirit  of  scepti- 
cism which  among  the  Epicurean  poets  of  Florence  denied 
the  immortality  of  the  scul  and  attacked  the  very  founda- 
tions of  the  faith  itself.  In  Southern  Gaul,  Languedoc  and 
Provence  had  embraced  the  hereby  of  the  Albigenses  and 
thrown  off  all  allegiance  to  the  Papacy.  Even  in  England, 
though  there  were  no  signs  as  yet  of  religious  revolt,  and 
though  the  political  action  of  Rome  had  been  in  the: 
main  on  the  side  of  freedom,  there  was  a  spirit  of  re- 
sistance to  its  interference  with  national  concerns  which 
broke  out  in  the  struggle  against  John.  "  The  Pope  has 
no  part  in  secular  matters,"  had  been  the  reply  of  London 
to  the  interdict  of  Honorius.  And  within  the  English 
Church  itself  there  was  much  to  call  for  reform.  Its 
attitude  in  the  strife  for  the  Charter  as  well  as  the  after 
work  of  the  Primate  had  made  it  more  popular  than  ever ; 
but  its  spiritual  energy  was  less  than  its  political. 
The  disuse  of  preaching,  the  decline  of  the  monastic 


lll.J  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  255 

orders  into  rich  landowners,  the  non-residence  and  ignor-  CHAP.  II. 
ance  of  the  parish-priests,  lowered  the  religious  influence  Henry"  the 
of  the  clergy.  The  abuses  of  the  time  foiled  even  the 
energy  of  such  men  as  Bishop  Grosseteste  of  Lincoln,  lisa. 
His  constitutions  forbid  the  clergy  to  haunt  taverns, 
to  gamble,  to  share  in  drinking  bouts,  to  mix  in  the  riot 
and  debauchery  of  the  life  of  the  baronage.  But  such 
prohibitions  witness  to  the  prevalence  of  the  evils  they 
denounce.  Bishops  and  deans  were  still  withdrawn  from 
their  ecclesiastical  duties  to  act  as  ministers,  judges,  or 
ambassadors.  Benefices  were  heaped  in  hundreds  at  a 
time  on  royal  favourites  like  John  Mansel.  Abbeys 
absorbed  the  tithes  of  parishes  and  then  served  them  by 
half-starved  vicars,  while  exemptions  purchased  fiom 
Rome  shielded  the  scandalous  lives  of  canons  and  monks 
from  all  episcopal  discipline.  And  behind  all  this  was 
a  group  of  secular  statesmen  and  scholars,  the  successors  of 
such  critics  as  Walter  Map,  waging  indeed  no  open  war- 
fare with  the  Church,  but  noting  with  bitter  sarcasm  its 
abuses  and  its  faults. 

To  bring  the  world  back  again  within  the  pale  of  the  The 
Church  was  the  aim  of  two  religious  orders  which  sprang  friars. 
suddenly  to  life  at  the  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
The  zeal  of  the  Spaniard  Dominic  was  roused  at  the  sight 
of  the  lordly  prelates  who  sought  by  fire  and  sword  to  win 
the  Albigensian  heretics  to  the  faith.  "Zeal,"  he  cried, 
"  must  be  met  by  zeal,  lowliness  by  lowliness,  false  sanctity 
by  real  sanctity,  preaching  lies  by  preaching  truth."  His 
fiery  ardour  and  rigid  orthodoxy  were  seconded  by  the 
mystical  piety,  the  imaginative  enthusiasm  of  Francis  of 
Assist  The  life  of  Francis  falls  like  a  stream  of  tender 
light  across  the  darkness  of  the  time.  In  the  frescoes  of 
Giotto  or  the  verse  of  Dante  we  see  him  take  Poverty  for 
his  bride.  He  strips  himself  of  all,  he  flings  his  very 
clothes  at  his  father's  feet,  that  he  may  be  one  with  Nature 
and  God.  His  passionate  verse  claims  the  moon  for  his 
sister  and  the  sun  for  his  brother,  he  calls  on  his  brother 


256 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II. 

Henry  the 
Third. 

1216 
1232. 


The 
Friars 
and  the 
Towns. 


the  Wind,  and  his  sister  the  Water.  His  last  faint  cry 
was  a  "  Welcome,  Sister  Death  ! "  Strangely  as  the  two 
men  differed  from  each  other,  their  aim  was  the  same — to 
convert  the  heathen,  to  extirpate  heresy,  to  reconcile  know- 
ledge with  orthodoxy,  above  all  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  the 
poor.  The  work  was  to  be  done  by  an  utter  reversal  of 
the  older  inonasticism,  by  seeking  personal  salvation  in 
effort  for  the  salvation  of  their  fellow-men,  by  exchanging 
the  solitary  of  tho  cloister  lor  the  preacher,  the  monk  for 
the  "brother"  or  friar.  To  force  the  new  "brethren  "  into 
entire  dependence  on  those  among  whom  they  laboured 
their  vow  of  Poverty  was  turned  into  a  stern  reality ;  the 
"  Begging  Friars "  were  to  subsist  solely  on  alms,  they 
might  possess  neither  money  nor  lands,  the  very  houses 
in  which  they  lived  were  to  be  held  in  trust  for  them  by 
others.  The  tide  of  popular  enthusiasm  which  welcomed 
their  appearance  swept  before  it  the  reluctance  of  Rome, 
the  jealousy  of  the  older  orders,  the  opposition  of  the 
parochial  priesthood.  Thousands  of  brethren  gathered  in 
a  few  years  round  Francis  .and  Dominic ;  and  the  begging 
preachers,  clad  in  coarse  frock  of  serge  with  a  girdle  of 
rope  round  their  waist,  wandered  barefooted  as  missionaries 
over  Asia,  battled  with  heresy  in  Italy  and  Gaul,  lectured 
in  the  Universities,  and  preached  and  toiled  among  the 
poor. 

To  the  towns  especially  the  coming  of  the  Friars  was  a 
religious  revolution.  They  had  been  left  for  the  most  part 
to  the  worst  and  most  ignorant  of  the  clergy,  the  mass- 
priest,  whose  sole  subsistence  lay  in  his  fees.  Burgher 
and  artizan  were  left  to  spell  out  what  religious  instruction 
they  might  from  the  gorgeous  ceremonies  of  the  Church's 
ritual  or  the  scriptural  pictures  and  sculptures  which  were 
graven  on  the  walls  of  its  minsters.  We  can  hardly 
wonder  at  the  burst  of  enthusiasm  which  welcomed  the 
itinerant  preacher  whose  fervid  appeal,  coarse  wit,  and 
familiar  story  brought  religion  into  the  fair  and  the  mar- 
ket place.  In  England,  where  the  Black  Friars  of;  Dominic 


Hi.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


257 


Third- 


1232! 


arrived  in  1221,  the  Grey  Friars  of  Francis  in  1224,  both  CHAP.  II. 
were  received  with  the  same  delight.  As  the  older  orders 
had  chosen  the  country,  the  Friars  chose  the  town.  They 
had  hardly  landed  at  Dover  before  they  made  straight  for 
London  and  Oxford.  In  their  ignorance  of  the  road  the 
first  two  Grey  Brothers  lost  their  way  in  the  woods  between 
Oxford  and  Baldon,  and  fearful  of  night  and  of  the  floods 
turned  aside  to  a  grange  of  the  monks  of  Abingdon.  Their 
ragged  clothes  and.  foreign  gestures,  as  they  prayed  for 
hospitality,  led  the  porter  to  take  them  for  jongleurs,  the 
jesters  and  jugglers  of  the  day,  and  the  news  of  this  break 
in  the  monotony  of  their  lives  brought  prior,  sacrist,  and 
cellarer  to  the  door  to  welcome  them  and  witness  their  tricks. 
The  disappointment  was  too  much  for  the  temper  of  the 
monks,  and  the  brothers  were  kicked  roughly  from  the  gate 
to  find  their  night's  lodging  under  a  tree.  But  the  welcome 
of  the  townsmen  made  up  everywhere  for  the  ill-will  and 
opposition  of  both  clergy  and  monks.  The  work  of  the 
Friars  was  physical  as  well  as  moral.  The  rapid  progress 
of  population  within  the  boroughs  had  outstripped  the 
sanitary  regulations  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  fever  or 
plague  or  the  more  terrible  scourge  of  leprosy  festered  in 
the  wretched  hovels  of  the  suburbs.  It  was  to  haunts 
such  as  these  that  Francis  had  pointed  his  disciples,  and 
the  Grey  Brethren  at  once  fixed  themselves  in  the  meanest 
and  poorest  quarters  of  each  town.  Their  first  work  lay 
in  the  noisome  lazar-houses  ;  it  was  amongst  the  lepers 
that  they  commonly  chose  the  site  of  their  homes  At 
London  they  settled  in  the  shambles  of  Newgate  ;  at  Oxford 
they  made  their  way  to  the  swampy  ground  between  its 
walls  and  the  streams  of  Thames.  Huts  of  mud  and 
timber,  as  mean  as  the  huts  around  them,  rose  within  the 
rough  fence  and  ditch  that  bounded  the  Friary.  The  order 
of  Francis  made  a  hard  fight  against  the  taste  for  sumptu- 
ous buildings  and  for  greater  personal  comfort  which  char- 
acterized the  time.  "  I  did  not  enter  into  religion  to  build 
walls,"  protested  an  English  provincial  when  the  brethren 


258  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.   pressed  for  a  larger  house ;  and  Albert  of  Pisa  ordered  a 
u  ^Tt>,o  stone  cloister  which  the  burgesses  of    Southampton  had 

.ticnry  LUG 

Third.  ^nilt  for  them  to  be  razed  to  the  ground.  "  You  need  no 
1232'  li^3  mountains  to  lift  your  heads  to  heaven,"  was  his 
scornful  reply  to  a  claim  for  pillows.  None  but  the  sick 
went  shod.  An  Oxford  Friar  found  a  pair  of  shoes  one 
morning,  and  wore  them  at  matins.  At  night  he  dreamed 
that  robbers  leapt  on  him  in  a  dangerous  pass  between 
Gloucester  and  Oxford  with  shouts  of  "  Kill,  kill !  "  "I 
am  a  friar,"  shrieked  the  terror-stricken  brother.  "You 
lie,"  was  the  instant  answer,  "  for  you  go  shod."  The  Friar 
lifted  up  his  foot  in  disproof,  but  the  shoe  was  there.  In 
an  agony  of  repentance  he  woke  and  flung  the  pair  out  of 
window. 

Revival  of  It  wa£  with  less  success  that  the  order  struggled  against 
Theology,  the  passion  of  the  time  for  knowledge.  Their  vow  of  poverty, 
rig  dly  interpreted  as  it  was  by  their  founders,  would  have 
denied  them  the  possession  of  books  or  materials  for  study. 
"  I  arn  your  breviary,  I  am  your  breviary,"  Francis  cried 
passionately  to  a  novice  who  asked  for  a  psalter.  When  the 
news  of  a  great  doctor's  reception  was  brought,  to  him  at 
Paris,  his  countenance  fell.  "I  am  afraid,  my  son,"  he 
replied,  "  that  such  doctors  will  be  the  destruction  of  my 
vineyard.  They  are  the  true  doctors  who  with  the  meek- 
ness of  wisdom  show  forth  good  works  for  the  edification 
of  their  neighbours."  One  kind  of  knowledge  indeed  their 
work  almost  forced  on  them.  The  popularity  of  their 
preaching  soon  led  them  to  the  deeper  study  of  theology ; 
within  a  short  time  after  their  establishment  in  England 
we  find  as  many  as  thirty  readers  or  lecturers  appointed  at 
Hereford,  Leicester,  Bristol,  and  other  places,  and  a  regular 
success' on  of  teachers  provided  at  each  University.  The 
Oxford  Dominicans  lectured  on  theology  in  the  nave  of 
their  new  church  while  philosophy  was  taught  in  the 
cloister.  The  first  provincial  of  the  Grey  Friars  built  a 
school  in  their  Oxford  house  and  persuaded  Grosseteste  tc 
lecture  there.  His  influence  after  his  promotion  to  the 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


259 


see  of  Lincoln  was  steadily  exerted  to  secure  theological 
study  among  the  Friars,  as  well  as  their  establishment  in 
the  University  ;  and  in  this  work  he  was  ably  seconded 
by  his  scholar,  Adam  Marsh,  or  de  Marisco,  under  whom 
the  Franciscan  school  at  Oxford  attained  a  reputation 
throughout  Christendom.  Lyons,  Paris,  and  Koln  borrowed 
from  it  their  professors  :  it  was  through  its  influence 
indeed  that  Oxford  rose  to  a  position  hardly  inferior  to 
that  of  Paris  itself  as  a  centre  of  scholasticism.  But  the 
result  of  this  powerful  impulse  was  soon  seen  to  be 
fatal  to  the  wider  intellectual  activity  which  had  till  now 
characterized  the  Universities.  Theology  in  its  scholastic 
form  resumed  its  supremacy  in  the  schools.  Its  only 
efficient  rivals  were  practical  studies  such  as  medicine  and 
law.  The  last,  as  he  was  by  far  the  greatest,  instance  of 
the  freer  and  wider  culture  which  had  been  the  glory  of 
the  last  century,  was  Roger  Bacon,  and  no  name  better 
illustrates  the  rapidity  and  completeness  with  which  it 
passed  away. 

Roger  Bacon  was  the  child  of  royalist  parents  who 
were  driven  into  exile  and  reduced  to  poverty  by  the  civil 
wars.  From  Oxford,  where  he  studied  under  Edmund  of 
Abingdon  to  whom  he  owed  his  introduction  to  the  works 
of  Aristotle,  he  passed  to  the  University  of  Paris,  and 
spent  his  whole  heritage  there  in  costly  studies  and  experi- 
ments. "  From  my  youth  up,"  he  writes,  "  I  have  laboured 
at  the  sciences  and  tongues.  I  have  sought  the  friendship 
of  all  men  among  the  Latins  who  had  any  reputation  for 
knowledge.  I  have  caused  youths  to  be  instructed  in 
languages,  geometry,  arithmetic,  the  construction  of  tables 
and  instruments,  and  many  needful  things  besides."  The 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  studies  as  he  had  resolved 
to  pursue  were  immense.  He  was  without  instruments 
or  means  of  experiment.  "  Without  mathematical  instru- 
ments no  science  can  be  mastered,"  he  complains  after- 
wards, "  and  these  instruments  are  not  to  be  found  among 
the  Latins,  nor  could  they  be  made  for  two  or  three  hundred 


CHAP.  II. 


Third. 


1216- 
1232. 


Roger 
Bacon. 


2(JO  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK. 

CHAP.  II.  pounds.  Besides,  better  tables  are  indispensably  necessary, 
Henry"  the  tables  on  which  the  motions  of  the  heavens  are  certified 
Third.  from  tjie  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  world  without  daily 
1232  labour,  but  these  tables  are  \vorth  a  king's  ransom  and 
—  could  not  be  made  without  a  vast  expense.  I  have  often 
attempted  the  composition  of  such  tables,  but  could  not 
finish  them  through  failure  of  means  and  the  folly  of  those 
whom  I  had  to  employ."  Books  were  difficult  and  some- 
times even  impossible  to  procure.  "  The  scientific  works 
of  Aristotle,  of  Avicenna,  of  Seneca,  of  Cicero,  and  other 
ancients  cannot  be  had  without  great  cost ;  their  principal 
works  have  not  been  translated  into  Latin,  and  copies  of 
others  are  not  to  be  found  in  ordinary  libraries  or  else- 
where. The  admirable  books  of  Cicero  de  Republica  are 
not  to  be  found  anywhere,  so  far  as  I  can  hear,  though  I 
have  made  anxious  enquiry  for  them  in  different  parts  of 
the  world,  and  by  various  messengers.  I  could  never  find 
the  works  of  Seneca,  though  I  made  diligent  search  for 
them  during  twenty  years  and  more.  And  so  it  is  with 
many  more  most  useful  books  connected  with  the  science 
of  morals."  It  is  only  words  like  these  of  his  own  that 
bring  home  to  us  the  keen  thirst  for  knowledge,  the 
patience,  the  energy  of  Eoger  Bacon.  He  returned  as  a 
teacher  to  Oxford,  and  a  touching  record  of  his  devotion 
to  those  whom  he  taught  remains  in  the  story  of  John  of 
London,  a  boy  of  fifteen,  whose  ability  raised  him  above 
the  general  level  of  his  pupils.  "  When  he  came  to  me 
as  a  poor  boy,"  says  Bacon  in  recommending  him  to  the 
Pope,  "  I  caused  him  to  be  nurtured  and  instructed  for  the 
love  of  God,  especially  since  for  aptitude  and  innocence  I 
have  never  found  so  towardly  a  youth.  Five  or  six.  years 
ago  I  caused  him  to  be  taught  in  languages,  mathematics, 
and  optics,  and  I  have  gratuitously  instructed  him  with 
my  own  lips  since  the  time  that  I  received  your  mandate. 
There  is  no  one  at  Paris  who  knows  so  much  of  the  root 
of  philosophy,  though  he  has  not  produced  the  branches, 
flowers,  and  fruit  because  of  his  youth,  and  because  he  has 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  261 

had  no  experience  in  teaching.  But  he  has  the  means  of  CHAP.  II. 
surpassing  all  the  Latins  if  he  live  to  grow  old  and  goes  on  Henry" the 
as  he  has  begun."  Third. 

The  pride  with  which  he  refers  to  his  system  of  instruc-  if  H" 
tion  was  justified  by  the  wide  extension  which  he  gave  to 
scientific  teaching  in  Oxford.  It  is  probably  of  himself 
that  he  speaks  when  he  tells  us  that  "  the  science  of  optics 
has  not  hitherto  been  lectured  on  at  Paris  or  elsewhere 
among  the  Latins,  save  twice  at  Oxford."  It  was  a  science 
on  which  he  had  laboured  for  ten  years.  But  his  teaching 
seems  to  have  fallen  on  a  barren  soil.  From  the  moment 
when  the  Friars  settled  in  the  Universities  scholasticism 
absorbed  the  whole  mental  energy  of  the  student  world. 
The  temper  of  the  age  was  against  scientific  or  philo- 
sophical studies.  The  older  enthusiasm  for  knowledge 
was  dying  down;  the  study  of  law  was  the  one  source 
of  promotion,  whether  in  Church  or  state ;  philosophy  was 
discredited,  literature  in  its  purer  forms  became  almost 
extinct.  After  forty  years  of  incessant  study,  Bacon 
found  himself  in  his  own  words  "  unheard,  forgotten, 
buried."  He  seems  at  one  time  to  have  been  wealthy, 
but  his  wealth  was  gone.  "  During  the  twenty  years  that 
I  have  specially  laboured  in  the  attainment  of  wisdom, 
abandoning  the  path  of  common  men,  I  have  spent  on 
these  pursuits  more  than  two  thousand  pounds,  not  to 
mention  the  cost  of  books,  experiments,  instruments, 
tables,  the  acquisition  of  languages,  and  the  like.  Add  to 
all  this  the  sacrifices  I  have  made  to  procure  the  friend- 
ship of  the  wise  and  to  obtain  well-instructed  assistants." 
Kuined  and  baffled  in  his  hopes,  Bacon  listened  to  the 
counsels  of  his  friend  Grosseteste  and  renounced  the 
world.  He  became  a  friar  of  the  order  of  St.  Francis, 
an  order  where  books  and  study  were  looked  upon  as 
hindrances  to  the  work  which  it  had  specially  under- 
taken, that  of  preaching  among  the  masses  of  tlie  poor. 
He  had  written  little.  So  far  was  he  from  attempting 
to  write  that  his  new  superiors  prohibited  him  from 

VOL.  I.— 18 


262  i  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  publishing  anything  under  pain  of  forfeiture  of  the  book 
_  — th  and  penance  of  bread  and  water.  But  we  can  see  the 
Third.  craving  of  his  mind,  the  passionate  instinct  of  creation 
iaasL  which  marks  the  man  of  genius,  in  the  joy  with  which 
he  seized  a  strange  opportunity  that  suddenly  opened 
before  him.  "  Some  few  chapters  on  different  subjects, 
written  at  the  entreaty  of  friends,"  seem  to  have  got 
abroad,  and  were  brought  by  one  of  the  Pope's  chaplains 
under  the  notice  of  Clement  the  Fourth.  The  Pope  at  once 
invited  Bacon  to  write.  But  difficulties  stood  in  his  way. 
Materials,  transcription,  and  other  expenses  for  such  a  work 
as  he  projected  would  cost  at  least  £60,  and  the  Pope 
sent  not  a  penny.  Bacon  begged  help  from  his  family, 
but  they  were  ruined  like  himself.  No  one  would  lend 
to  a  mendicant  friar,  and  when  his  friends  raised  the 
money  he  needed  it  was  by  pawning  their  goods  in  the 
hope  of  repayment  from  Clement.  Nor  was  this  all  ;  the 
work  itself,  abstruse  and  scientific  as  was  its  subject,  had 
to  be  treated  in  a  clear  and  popular  form  to  gain  the 
Papal  ear.  But  difficulties  which  would  have  crushed 
another  man  only  roused  Roger  Bacon  to  an  almost  super- 
human energy.  By  the  close  of  1267  the  work  was 
done.  The  "  greater  work,"  itself  in  modern  form  a 
closely  printed  folio,  with  its  successive  summaries  and 
appendices  in  the  "  lesser"  and  the  "  third  "  works  (which 
make  a  good  octavo  more)  were  produced  and  forwarded  to 
the  Pope  within  fifteen  months. 

The  No  trace  of  this  fiery  haste  remains  in  the  book  itself. 

Opus  The  "Opus  Majus"  is  alike  wonderful  in  plan  and  detail. 
°lius'  Bacon's  main  purpose,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Whewell,  is  "  to 
urge  the  necessity  of  a  reform  in  the  mode  of  philoso- 
phizing, to  set  forth  the  reasons  why  knowledge  had  not 
made  a  greater  progress,  to  draw  back  attention  to  sources 
of  knowledge  which  had  been  unwisely  neglected,  to  dis- 
cover other  sources  which  were  yet  wholly  unknown,  and 
to  animate  men  to  the  undertaking  by  a  prospect  of  the 
vast  advantages  which  it  offered."  The  developeinent  of  his 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


263 


scheme  is  on  the  largest  scale ;  he  gathers  together  the  whole 
knowledge  of  his  time  on  every  branch  of  science  which  it  : 
possessed,  and  as  he  passes  them  in  review  he  suggests  im- 
provements in  nearly  all.  His  labours,  both  here  and  in 
his  after  works,  in  the  field  of  grammar  and  philology,  his 
perseverance  in  insisting  on  the  necessity  of  correct  texts, 
of  an  accurate  knowledge  of  languages,  of  an  exact  inter- 
pretation, are  hardly  less  remarkable  than  his  scientific 
investigations.  From  grammar  he  passes  to  mathematics, 
from  mathematics  to  experimental  philosophy.  Under  the 
name  of  mathematics  indeed  was  included  all  the  physical 
science  of  the  time.  "  The  neglect  of  it  for  nearly  thirty 
or  forty  years,"  pleads  Bacon  passionately,  "  hath  nearly 
destroyed  the  entire  studies  of  Latin  Christendom.  For  he 
who  knows  not  mathematics  cannot  know  any  other 
sciences ;  and  what  is  more,  he  cannot  discover  his  own 
ignorance  or  find  its  proper  remedies."  Geography, 
chronology,  arithmetic,  music,  are  brought  into  something 
of  scientific  form,  and  like  rapid  sketches  are  given 
of  the  question  of  climate,  hydrography,  geography, 
and  astrology.  The  subject  of  optics,  his  own  especial 
study,  is  treated  with  greater  fulness ;  he  enters  into  the 
question  of  the  anatomy  of  the  eye  besides  discussing 
problems  which  lie  more  strictly  within  the  province 
of  optical  science.  In  a  word,  the  "  Greater  Work,"  to 
borrow  the  phrase  of  Dr.  Whewell,  is  "at  once  the  En-  * 
cyclopaedia  and  the  Novum  Organum  of  the  thirteenth 
century."  The  whole  of  the  afterworks  of  Roger  Bacon 
— and  treatise  after  treatise  has  of  late  been  disentombed 
from  our  libraries — are  but  developements  in  detail  of 
the  magnificent  conception  he  laid  before  Clement.  Such 
a  work  was  its  own  great  reward.  From  the  world 
around  Roger  Bacon  could  look  for  and  found  small  recog- 
nition. No  word  of  acknowledgement  seems  to  have 
reached  its  author  from  the  Pope.  If  we  may  credit  a 
more  recent  story,  his  writings  only  gained  him  a  prison 
from  his  order.  "  Unheard,  forgotten,  buried,"  the  old  man 


CHAP.  II. 

enrjTtiie 
lhirdi 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


CHAP.IH.  died  as  be  had  lived,  and  it  has  been  reserved  for  later 
Henry"  the  ages  to  roll  away  the  obscurity  t,h:it  had  gathered  round 

Th^f       his  memory,  and  to  place  first  in  the  great  roll  of  modern 

ifaiT     science  the  name  of  Koger  Bacon. 
Schoias-        r^ne  fc"llire  °f  Bacon.  shows  the  overpowering  strength 

ticism.  of  the  drift  towards  the  practical  studies,  and  above  all 
towards  theology  in  its  scholastic  guise.  Aristotle,  who  had 
been  so  long  held  at  bay  as  the  most  dangerous  foe  of 
mediaeval  faith,  was  now  turned  by  the  adoption  of  his 
logical  method  in  the  discussion  and  definition  of  theo- 
logical dogma  into  its  unexpected  ally.  It  \va^  this  very 
method  that  led  to  "  that  unprofitable  subtlety  and 
curiosity"  which  Lord  Bacon  notes  as  the  vice  of  the 
scholastic  philosophy.  But  "  certain  it  is  "  —  to  continue 
the  same  great  thinker's  comment  on  the  Friars  —  "that  if 
these  schoolmen  to  their  great  thirst  of  truth  and  un- 
wearied travel  of  wit  had  joined  variety  of  reading  and 
contemplation,  they  had  proved  excellent  lights  to  the 
great  advancement  of  all  learning  and  knowledge."  What, 
amidst  all  their  errors,  they  undoubtedly  did  was  to  insist 
on  the  necessity  of  rigid  demonstration  and  a  more  exact 
use  of  words,  to  introduce  a  clear  and  methodical  treat- 
ment of  all  subjects  into  discussion,  and  above  all  to 
substitute  an  appeal  to  reason  for  unquestioning  obedience 
to  authority.  It  was  by  this  critical  tendency,  by  the 
"  new  clearness  and  precision  which  scholasticism  gave 
to  enquiry,  that  in  spite  of  the  trivial  questions  with 
which  it  often  concerned  itself  it  trained  the  human  mind 
through  the  next  two  centuries  to  a  temper  which  fitted 
it  to  profit  by  the  great  disclosure  of  knowledge  that 
brought  about  the  Renascence.  And  it  is  to  the 
same  spirit  of  fearless  enquiry  as  well  as  to  the  strong 
popular  sympathies  which  their  very  constitution  neces- 
sitated that  we  must  attribute  the  influence  which  the 
Friars  undoubtedly  exerted  in  the  coming  struggle  between 
the  people  and  the  Crown.  Their  position  is  clearly  and 
strongly  marked  throughout  the  whole  contest.  The 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


265 


Third. 

1216 
1232. 


Its 

Political 
Influence. 


University  of  Oxford,  which  soon  fell  under  the  direction    CHAP.  11. 
of   their  teaching,   stood   first  in  its  resistance  to   Papal  Henry" the 
exactions  and  its  claim  of  English  liberty.     The  classes  in 
the  towns,  on  whom  the  influence  of  the  Friars  told  most 
directly,  were  steady  supporters  of  freedom  throughout  the 
Barons'  Wars. 

Politically  indeed  the  teaching  of  the  schoolmen  was 
of  immense  value,  for  it  set  on  a  religious  basis  and  gave 
an  intellectual  form  to  the  constitutional  theory  of  the 
relations  between  King  and  people  which  was  slowly 
emerging  from  the  struggle  with  the  Crown.  In  assum- 
ing the  responsibility  of  a  Christian  king  to  God  for 
the  good  government  of  his  realm,  in  surrounding  the 
pledges  whether  of  ruler  or  ruled  with  religious  sanctions, 
the  mediaeval  Church  entered  its  protest  against  any 
personal  despotism.  The  schoolmen  pushed  further  still 
to  the  doctrine  of  a  contract  between  king  and  people ; 
and  their  trenchant  logic  made  short  work  of  the  royal 
claims  to  irresponsible  power  and  unquestioning  obedience. 
"  He  who  would  be  in  truth  a  king,"  ran  a  poem  which 
embodies  their  teaching  at  this  time  in  pungent  verse — 
"  he  is  a  '  free  king '  indeed  if  he  rightly  rule  himself  and 
his  realm.  All  things  are  lawful  to  him  for  the  govern- 
ment of  his  realm,  but  nothing  is  lawful  to  him  for  its 
destruction.  It  is  one  thing  to  rule  according  to  a  king's 
duty,  another  to  destroy  a  kingdom  by  resisting  the  law." 
"  Let  the  community  of  the  realm  advise,  and  let  it  be 
known  what  the  generality,  to  whom  their  laws  are  best 
known,  think  on  the  matter.  They  wrho  are  ruled  by  the 
laws  know  those  laws  best ;  they  who  make  daily  trial  of 
them  are  best  acquainted  with  them ;  and  since  it  is  their 
own  affairs  which  are  at  stake  they  will  take  the  more 
care  and  will  act  with  an  eye  to  their  own  peace."  "  It 
concerns  the  community  to  see  what  sort  of  men  ought 
justly  to  be  chosen  for  the  weal  of  the  realm."  The  consti- 
tutional restrictions  on  the  royal  authority,  the  right  of  the 
whole  nation  to  deliberate  and  decide  on  its  own  affairs 


266  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  and  to  have  a  voice  in  the  selection  of  the  administrators 
Henry" the  of  government,  had  never  been  so  clearly  stated  before. 
Th^ldt       But  the  importance  of  the  Friar's  work  lay  in  this,  that 
ifsi"     the  work  of  the  scholar  was  supplemented  by  that  of  the 
popular  preacher.     The  theory  of  government  wrought  out 
in  cell  and  lecture- room  was  carried  over  the  length  and 
breadth   of  the  land  by  the  mendicant  brother,  begging 
his  way  from  town  to  town,  chatting  with  farmer  or  house- 
wife  at   the   cottage  door,   and    setting   up  his  portable 
pulpit  in  village   green   or   market-place.      His   open-air 
sermons,   ranging  from    impassioned    devotion   to  coarse 
story    and    homely    mother    wit,    became    the    journals 
as  well  as  the  homilies  of  the  day ;  political  and  social 
questions  found  place  in  them  side  by  side  with  spiritual 
matters  ;   and   the  rudest  countryman  learned  his  tale  of 
a  king's   oppression    or  a   patriot's  hopes  as  he  listened 
to   the   rambling  passionate,  humorous    discourse  of  the 
Henry      beting  friar. 

.»          /T>L  *      J  OO  O 

Never  had  there  been  more  need  of  such  a  political  edu- 
cation of  the  whole  people  than  at  the  moment  we~-have 
reached.  For  the  triumph  of  the  Charter,  the  constitu- 
tional government  of  Governor  and  Justiciar,  had  rested 
mainly  on  the  helplessness  of  the  King.  As  boy  or  youth, 
Henry  the  Third  had  bowed  to  the  control  of  William 
Marshal  or  Langton  or  Hubert  de  Burgh.  But  he  was 
now  grown  to  manhood,  and  his  character  was  from  this 
hour  to  tell  on  the  events  of  his  reign.  From  the  cruelty, 
the  lust,  the  impiety  of  his  father  the  young  King  was 
absolutely  free.  There  was  a  geniality,  a  vivacity,  a  re- 
finement in  his  temper  which  won  a  personal  affection  for 
him  even  in  his  worst  days  from  some  who  bitterly  censured 
his  rule.  The  Abbey-church  of  Westminster,  with  which 
he  replaced  the  ruder  minster  of  the  Confessor,  remains  a 
monument  of  his  artistic  taste.  He  was  a  patron  and  friend 
of  men  of  letters,  and  himself  skilled  in  the  "gay  science" 
of  the  troubadour.  But  of  the  political  capacity  which  was 
the  characteristic  of  his  house  he  had  little  or  none. 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


267 


CHAP.  II. 

Henry  the 
Third. 

1216 
1232. 


Profuse,  changeable,  false  from  sheer  meanness  of  spirit, 
impulsive  alike  in  good  and  ill,  unbridled  in  temper  and 
tongue,  reckless  in  insult  and  wit,  Henry's  delight  was  in 
the  display  of  an  empty  and  prodigal  magnificence,  his  one 
notion  of  government  was  a  dream  of  arbitrary  power. 
But  frivolous  as  the  King's  mood  was,  he  clung  with  a 
weak  man's  obstinacy  to  a  distinct  line  of  policy  ;  and 
this  was  the  policy  not  of  Hubert  or  Langton  but  of 
John.  He  cherished  the  hope  of  recovering  his  heritage 
across  the  sea.  He  believed  in  the  absolute  power  of 
the  Crown  ;  and  looked  on  the  pledges  of  the  Great 
Charter  as  promises  which  force  had  wrested  from  the 
King  and  which  force  could  wrest  back  again.  France 
was  telling  more  and  more  on  English  opinion ;  and  the 
claim  which  the  French  kings  were  advancing  to  a  divine 
arid  absolute  power  gave  a  sanction  in  Henry's  rnind  to  the 
claim  of  absolute  authority  which  was  still  maintained 
by  his  favourite  advisers  in  the  royal  council.  Above  all 
he  clung  to  the  alliance  with  the  Papacy.  Henry  was 
personally  devout ;  and  his  devotion  only  bound  him  the 
more  firmly  to  his  father's  system  of  friendship  with 
Piome.  Gratitude  and  self-interest  alike  bound  him  to  the 
Papal  See.  Ptorne  had  saved  him  from  ruin  as  a  child ; 
its  legate  had  set  the  crown  on  his  head  ;  its  threats  and 
excommunications  had  foiled  Lewis  and  built  up  again, 
a  royal  party.  Above  all  it  was  Borne  which  could  alone 
free  him  from  his  oath  to  the  Charter,  and  which  could 
alone  defend  him  if  like  his  father  he  had  to  front  the 
baronage  in  arms. 

His  temper  was  now  to  influence  the  whole  system  of   England 
government.      In    1227  Henry  declared   himself  of  age ;  andRo™> 
and  though   Hubert    still  remained  Justiciar  every  year 
saw  him  more  powerless   in  his  struggle  with  the  ten- 
dencies of  the  King.  The  death  of  Stephen  Langton  in  1228 
was  a  yet  heavier  blow  to  English  freedom.     In  persuad- 
ing Rome  to  withdraw  her  Legate  the  Primate  had  averted 
a  conflict  between  the  national  desire  for  self-government 


i>G8  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II.  and  the  Papal  claims  of  ovcrlordship.  But  his  death  gave 
Henry" the  *ne  signal  for  a  more  serious  struggle,  for  it  was  in  the 
Third.  oppression  of  the  Church  of  England  by  the  Popes  through 
1232'  *ne  reign  of  Henry  that  the  little  rift  first  opened  which 
was  destined  to  widen  into  the  gulf  that  parted  the  one 
from  the  other  at  the  Keformation.  In  the  mediaeval  theory 
of  the  Papacy,  as  Innocent  and  his  successors  held  it, 
Christendom,  as  a  spiritual  realm  of  which  the  Popes  were 
the  head,  took  the  feudal  form  of  the  secular  realms  which 
lay  within  its  pale.  The  Pope  was  its  sovereign,  the 
Bishops  were  his  barons,  and  the  clergy  were  his  under 
vassals.  As  the  King  demanded  aids  and  subsidies  in  case 
of  need  from  his  liegemen,  so  in  the  theory  of  Kome  might 
the  head  of  the  Church  demand  aid  in  need  from  the 
priesthood.  And  at  this  moment  the  need  of  the  Popes 
was  sore.  Eome  had  plunged  into  her  desperate  conflict 
with  the  Emperor,  Frederick  the  Second,  and  was  looking 
everywhere  for  the  means  of  recruiting  her  drained  ex- 
chequer. On  England  she  believed  herself  to  have  more 
than  a  spiritual  claim  for  support.  She  regarded  the 
kingdom  as  a  vassal  kingdom,  and  as  bound  to  aid  its 
overlord.  It  was  only  by  the  promise  of  a  heavy  subsidy 
that  Henry  in  1229  could  buy  the  Papal  confirmation  of 
Langton's  successor.  But  the  baronage  was  of  other  mind 
than  Henry  as  to  this  claim  of  overlordship,  and  the 
demand  of  an  aid  to  Piome  from  the  laity  was  at  once 
rejected  by  them.  Her  spiritual  claim  over  the  allegiance 
of  the  clergy  however  remained  to  fall  back  upon,  and  the 
clergy  were  in  the  Pope's  hand.  Gregory  the  Ninth  had 
already  claimed  for  the  Papal  see  a  right  of  nomination 
to  some  prebends  in  each  cathedral  church  ;  he  now 
demanded  a  tithe  of  all  the  moveables  of  the  priesthood, 
and  a  threat  of  excommunication  silenced  their  murmurs. 
Exaction  followed  exaction  as  the  needs  of  the  Papal 
treasury  grew  greater.  The  very  rights  of  lay  patrons 
were  set  aside,  and  under  the  name  of  "  reserves "  pre- 
sentations to  English  benefices  were  sold  in  the  Papal 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  269 

market,  while  Italian  clergy  were  quartered  on  the  best    CHAP.  II. 
livings  of  the  Church.  HenrjTthe 

The  general  indignation  at  last  found  vent  in  a  wide  T^^- 
conspiracy.  In  1231  letters  from  "  the  whole  body  of  \zs%. 
those  who  prefer  to  die  rather  than  be  ruined  by  the  p^iiof 
Romans  "  were  scattered  over  the  kingdom  by  armed  men  ;  Hubert  dt 
tithes  gathered  for  the  Pope  or  the  foreign  priests  were  ^ur9h- 
seized  and  given  to  the  poor ;  the  Papal  collectors  were 
beaten  and  their  bulls  trodden  under  foot.  The  re- 
monstrances of  Rome  only  made  clearer  the  national 
character  of  the  movement ;  but  as  enquiry  went  on  the 
hand  of  the  Justiciar  himself  was  seen  to  have  been  at 
work.  Sheriffs  had  stood  idly  by  while  violence  was  done  ; 
royal  letters  had  been  shown  by  the  rioters  as  approving 
their  acts;  and  the  Pope  openly  laid  the  charge  of  the 
outbreak  on  the  secret  connivance  of  Hubert  de  Burgh. 
No  charge  could  have  been  mere  fatal  to  Hubert  in  the 
mind  of  the  King.  But  he  was  already  in  full  collision  with 
the  Justiciar  on  other  grounds.  Henry  was  eager  to  vindi- 
cate his  right  to  the  great  heritage  his  father  had  lost :  the 
Gascons,  who  still  clung  to  him,  not  because  they  loved  Eng- 
land but  because  they  hated  France,  spurre|ji  him  to  war;  and 
in  1229  a  secret  invitation  came  from  the  Norman  barons. 
But  while  Hubert  held  power  no  serious  effort  was  made 
to  carry  on  a  foreign  strife.  The  Norman  call  was  rejected 
through  his  influence,  and  when  a  great  armament  gathered 
at  Portsmouth  for  a  campaign  in  Poitou  it  dispersed  for 
want  of  transport  and  supplies.  The  young  King  drew 
his  sword  and  rushed  madly  on  the  Justiciar,  charging 
him  with  treason  and  corruption  by  the  gold  of  France. 
But  the  quarrel  was  appeased  and  the  expedition  deferred 
for  the  year.  In  1230  Henry  actually  took  the  field  in 
Britanny  and  Poitou,  but  the  failure  of  the  campaign  was 
again  laid  at  the  door  of  Hubert  whose  opposition  was 
said  to  have  prevented  a  decisive  engagement.  It  was 
at  this  moment  that  the  Papal  accusation  filled  up  the 
measure  of  Henry's  wrath  against  his  minister.  In  the 


270  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.     [BOOK  in. 

CHAP.  II.  summer  of  1232  he  was  deprived  of  his  office  of  Justiciar, 

— *i.    and  dragged  from  a  chapel  at  Brentvvood  where  threats  of 
Henry  tne  3 

Third.       death  had  driven  him  to  take  sanctuary.     A  smith  who 

1232'  was  ordered  to  shackle  him  stoutly  refused.  "  I  will  die 
any  death  "  he  said  "  before  I  put  iron  on  the  man  who 
freed  England  from  the  stranger  and  saved  Dover  from 
France."  The  remonstrances  of  the  Bishop  of  London 
forced  the  King  to  replace  Hubert  iii  sanctuary,  but 
hunger  compelled  him  to  surrender ;  he  was  thrown  a 
prisoner  into  the  Tower,  and  though  soon  released  he 
remained  powerless  in  the  realm.  His  fall  left  England 
without  a  check  to  the  rule  of  Henry  himself* 


CHAPTEE  III. 
THE  'BARONS'  WAR. 

1232—1272. 
ONCE  master  of  his  realm,  Henry  the  Third  was  quick  to        The 

A  1  * 

declare  his  plan  of  government.  The  two  great  checks  on  ALl 
a  merely  personal  rule  lay  as  yet  in  the  authority  of  the 
great  ministers  of  State  and  in  the  national  character  of 
the  administrative  body  which  had  been  built  up  by  Henry 
the  Second.  Both  of  these  checks  Henry  at  once  set 
himself  to  remove.  He  would  be  his  own  minister.  The 
Justiciar  ceased  to  be  the  Lieutenant-General  of  the  King 
and  dwindled  into  a  presiding  judge  of  the  law-courts. 
The  Chancellor  had  grown  into  a  great  officer  of  State,  and 
in  1226  this  office  had  been  conferred  on  the  Bishop  of 
Chichester  by  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Great  Council. 
But  Henry  succeeded  in  wresting  the  seal  from  him  and 
naming  to  this  as  to  other  offices  at  his  pleasure.  His  policy 
was  to  entrust  all  high  posts  of  government  to  mere 
clerks  of  the  royal  chapel ;  trained  administrators,  but 
wholly  dependent  on  the  royal  will.  He  found  equally 
dependent  agents  of  administration  by  surrounding  him- 
self with  foreigners.  The  return  of  Peter  des  Eoches  to 
the  royal  councils  was  the  first  sign  of  the  new  system ; 
and  hosts  of  hungry  Poitevins  and  Bretons  were  sum- 
moned over  to  occupy  the  royal  castles  and  fill  the  judicial 
and  administrative  posts  about  the  Court.  The  King's 
marriage  in  1236  to  Eleanor  of  Provence  was  followed  by 
the  arrival  in  England  of  the  new  Queen's  uncles.  The 


272  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP  III.  "  Savoy,"  as  his  house  in  the  Strand  was  named,  still  recalls 
^T       Peter  of  Savoy  who  arrived  five  years  later  to  take  for  a 

Barons'     wliile  the  chief  place  at  Henry's  council-board ;  another 
— „      brother,    Boniface,   was   consecrated   on   Archbishop   Ed- 
1272.     mund's  death  to  the  highest  post  in  the  realm  save  the 
Crown   itself,   the   Archbishoprick   of   Canterbury.      The 
young  Primate,  like  his-  brother,  brought  with  him  foreign 
fashions  strange  enough  to  English  folk.     His  armed  re- 
tainers pillaged  the  markets.     His  own  arch  (episcopal  fist 
felled  to  the  ground  the  prior  of    St.  Bartholomew-by- 
Smithfield  who  opposed  his  visitation.    London  was  roused 
by  the  outrage  ;  on  the  King's  refusal  to  do  justice  a  noisy 
crowd    of    citizens   surrounded    the    Primate's    house    at 
Lambeth   with   cries  of  vengeance,  and  the  "  handsome 
archbishop,"   as   his   followers   styled   him,   was   glad  to 
escape  over  sea.     This  brood  of  Provencals  was  followed 
in  1 243  by  the  arrival  of  the  Poitevin  relatives  of  John's 
queen,  Isabella  of  Angouleme.     Aymer  was  made  Bishop 
of  Winchester ;   William  of  Valence  received  at  a  later 
time  the  earldom  of  Pembroke.     Even  the  King's  jester 
was  a  Poitevin.    Hundreds  of  their  dependants  followed 
these  great  nobles  to  find  a  fortune  in  the  English  realm. 
The  Poitevin  lords  brought  in  their  train  a  bevy  of  ladies 
in  search  of  husbands,  and  three  English  earls  who  were 
in  royal  wardship  were  wedded  by  the  King  to  foreigners. 
The  whole  machinery  of  administration  passed  into  the 
hands  of  men  who  were  ignorant  and  contemptuous  of  the 
principles  of  English  government  or  English  law.     Their 
rule  was  a  mere  anarchy ;  the  very  retainers  of  the  royal 
household  turned  robbers  and  pillaged  foreign  merchants 
in  the  precincts  of  the  Court;    corruption  invaded   the 
judicature  ;    at  the  close  of  this  period  of  misrule  Henry 
de  Bath,  a  justiciary,  was  proved  to  have  openly  taken 
bribes  and  to  have  adjudged  to  himself  disputed  estates. 
Henrji         That  rnisgovernment  of  this  kind  should  have  gone  on 

Baronage,   unchecked  in  defiance  of  the  provisions  of  the  Charter 
was  owing  to  the  disunion  and  sluggishness  of  the  English 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


273 


1232- 
1272. 


baronage.  On  the  first  arrival  of  the  foreigners  Richard,  CHAP.  Ill, 
the  Earl  Mareschal,  a  son  of  the  great  Regent,  stood  forth  The 
as  their  leader  to  demand  the  expulsion  of  the  sti  angers  war.8 
from  the  royal  Council.  Though  deserted  by  the  bulk  of 
the  nobles  he  defeated  the  foreign  troops  sent  against  him, 
and  forced  the  King  to  treat  lor  peace.  But  at  this  critical 
moment  the  Earl  was  drawn  by  an  intrigue  of  Peter  des 
Roches  to  Ireland ;  he  fell  in  a  petty  skirmish,  and  the 
barons  were  left  without  a  head.  The  interposition  of 
a  new  primate,  Edmund  of  Abin^don,  forced  the  King  to 
dismiss  Peter  from  court ;  but  there  was  no  real  change  of 
system,  and  the  remonstrances  of  the  Archbishop  and 
of  Robert  Grosseteste,  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  remained 
fruitless.  In  the  long  interval  of  misrule  the  financial 
straits  of  the  King  forced  him  to  heap  exaction  on 
exaction.  The  Forest  Laws  were  used  as  a  means  of 
extortion,  sees  and  abbeys  were  kept  vacant,  loans  wrere 
wrested  from  lords  and  prelates,  the  Court  itself  lived  at 
free  quarters  wherever  it  moved.  Supplies  of  this  kind 
however  \vere  utterly  insufficient  to  defray  the  cost  of  the 
King's  prodigality.  A  sixth  of  the  royal  revenue  was 
wasted  in  pensions  to  foreign  favourites.  The  deUa  of 
the  Crown  amounted  to  four  times  its  annual  income. 
Henry  was  forced  to  appeal  for  aid  to  the  great  Council 
of  the  realm,  and  aid  was  granted  in  1237  on  promise 
of  control  in  its  expenditure  and  on  condition  that  the 
King  confirmed  the  Charter.  But  Charter  and  promise 
were  alike  disregarded;  and  in  1242  the  resentment  of 
the  barons  expressed  itself  in  a  determined  protest  and 
a  refusal  of  further  subsidies.  In  spite  of  their  refusal 
however  Henry  gathered  money  enough  for  a  costly  rxj»e- 
dition  for  the  recovery  of  Poitou.  The  attempt  ended  in 
failure  and  shame.  At  Taillebourg  the  King's  force  fled 
in  disgraceful  rout  before  the  French  as  far  as  Saintes, 
and  only  the  sudden  illness  of  Lewis  the  Ninth  and  a 
disease  which  scattered  his  army  saved  Bordeaux  from 
the  conquerors.  The  treasury  was  utterly  drained,  and 


274  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III.  Henry  was  driven  in  1244  to  make  a  fresh  appeal  with 
^~  his  own  mouth  to  the  baronage.  But  the  barons  had  now 
Barons'  ralljed  to  a  plan  of  action,  and  we  can  hardly  fail  to 
1232  attribute  their  union  to  the  man  who  appears  at  their 
1272.  ]iead.  This  was  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  Simon  of  Montfort. 
Simon  of  Simon  was  the  son  of  another  Simon  of  Montfort,  whose 
Montfort.  name  had  become  memorable  for  his  ruthless  crusade 
against  the  Albigensian  heretics  in  Southern  Gaul,  and 
who  had  inherited  the  Earldom  of  Leicester  through  his 
mother,  a  sister  and  co-heiress  of  the  last  Earl  of  the 
house  of  Beaumont.  But  as  Simon's  tendencies  were  for 
the  most  part  French  John  had  kept  the  revenues  of  the 
earldom  in  his  own  hands,  and  on  his  death  the  claim 
of  his  elder  son,  Amaury,  was  met  by  the  refusal  of  Henry 
the  Third  to  accept  a  divided  allegiance.  The  refusal 
marks  the  rapid  growth  of  that  sentiment  of  nationality 
which  the  loss  of  Normandy  had  brought  home.  Amaury 
chose  to  remain  French,  and  by  a  family  arrangement 
with  the  King's  sanction  the  honour  of  Leicester  passed 
in  1231  to  his  younger  brother  Simon.  His  choice  made 
Simon  an  Englishman,  but  his  foreign  blood  still  moved  the 
jealousy  of  the  barons,  and  this  jealousy  was  quickened 
by  a  secret  match  in  1238  with  Eleanor,  the  King's  sister 
and  widow  of  the  second  William  Marshal.  The  match 
formed  probably  part  of  a  policy  which  Henry  pursued 
throughout  his  reign  of  bringing  the  great  earldoms 
into  closer  connexion  with  the  Crown.  That  of  Chester 
had  fallen  to  the  King  through  the  extinction  of  the 
family  of  its  earls;  Cornwall  was  held  by  his  brother, 
Eichard ;  Salisbury  by  his  cousin.  Simon's  marriage 
linked  the  Earldom  of  Leicester  to  the  royal  house. 
But  it  at  once  brought  Simon  into  conflict  with  the 
nobles  and  the  Church.  The  baronage,  justly  indignant 
that  such  a  step  should  have  been  takor,  without  their  con- 
sent, for  the  Queen  still  remained  childless  and  Eleanor's 
children  by  one  whom  they  looked  on  as  a  stranger 
promised  to  be  heirs  of  the  Crown,  rose  in  a  revolt  which 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


275 


1232 
1272. 


failed  only  through  the  desertion  of  their  head,  Earl  Richard  CHAP.  III 

of  Cornwall,  who  was  satisfied  with  Earl  Simon's  withdrawal        xi« 

from  the  Royal  Council.     The  censures  of  the  Church  on       war* 

Eleanor's   breach  of   a  vow  of  chaste  widowhood  which 

she  had  made  at  her  first  husband's  death  were  averted 

with  hardly  less  difficulty  by  a  journey  to  Rome.     It  was 

after  a  year  of  trouble  that  Simon  returned  to  England 

to  reap  as  it  seemed  the  fruits  of  his  high  alliance.     He 

was  now  formally  made  Earl  of  Leicester  and  re-entered 

the  Royal  Council.     But  it  is  probable  that  he  still  found 

there  the  old  jealousy  which  had  forced  from  him  a  pledge 

of  retirement  after  his  marriage ;  and  that  his  enemies  now 

succeeded  in  winning  over  the  King.     In  a  few  months,  at 

any  rate,  he  found  the  changeable.  King  alienated  from  him, 

he  was  driven  by  a  burst  of  royal  passion  from  the  realm, 

and  was  forced  to  spend  seven  months  in  France. 

Henry's  anger  passed  as  quickly  as  it  had  risen,  and  in  the 
spring  of  1240  the  Earl  was  again  received  with  honour  at 
court.  It  was  from  this  moment  however  that  his  posi- 
tion changed.  As  yet  it  had  been  that  of  a  foreigner, 
confounded  ill  the  eyes  of  the  nation  at  large  with  the 
Poitevins  and  Prove^als  who  swarmed  about  the  court. 
But  in  the  years  of  retirement  which  followed  Simon's 
return  to  England  his  whole  attitude  was  reversed.  There 
was  as  yet  no  quarrel  with  the  King:  he  followed  him  in 
a  campaign  across  the  Channel,  and  shared  in  his  defeat  at 
Saintes.  But  he  was  a  friend  of  Grosseteste  and  a  patron 
of  the  Friars,  and  became  at  last  known  as  a  steady 
opponent  of  the  misrule  about  him.  When  prelates  and 
barons  chose  twelve  representatives  to  confer  with  Henry 
in  1244  Simon  stood  with  Earl  Richard  of  Cornwall  at  the 
head  of  them.  A  definite  plan  of  reform  disclosed  his 
hand.  The  confirmation  of  the  Charter  was  to  be  followed 
by  the  election  of  Justiciar,  Chancellor,  Treasurer  in  the 
Great  Council.  Nor  was  this  restoration  of  a  responsible 
ministry  enough ;  a  perpetual  Council  was  to  attend  the 
King  and  devise  further  reforms.  The  plan  broke  against 


Simoii's 

early 

action. 


576 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Barons' 

War. 

1232 
1272. 


Simon  in 
(toscony. 


CHAP.  ill.  Henry's  resistance  and  a  Papal  prohibition ;  but  from  this 
time  the  Earl  took  his  stand  in  the  front  rank  of  the  patriot 
leaders.  The  struggle  of  the  following  years  was  chiefly 
with  the  exactions  of  the  Papacy,  and  Simon  was  one  of 
the  first  to  sign  the  protest  which  the  Parliament  in  1246 
addressed  to  the  court  of  Eome.  He  was  present  at  the 
Lent  Parliament  of  1248,  and  we  can  hardly  doubt  that 
he  shared  in  its  bold  rebuke  of  the  King's  misrule  and  its 
renewed  demand  for  the  appointment  of  the  higher  officers 
of  state  by  the  Council.  It  was  probably  a  sense  of  the 
danger  of  leaving  at  home  such  a  centre  of  all  efforts 
after  reform  that  brought  Henry  to  send  .him  in  the 
autumn  of  1248  as  Seneschal  of  Gascony  to  save  for  the 
Crown  the  last  of  its  provinces  over  sea. 

Threatened  by  France  and  by  Navarre  without  as  well  as 
by  revolt  within,  the  loss  of  Gascony  seemed  close  at  hand; 
but  in  a  few  months  the  stern  rule  of  the  new  Seneschal 
had  quelled  every  open  foe  within  or  without  its  bounds. 
To  bring  the  province  to  order  proved  a  longer  and  a  harder 
task.  Its  nobles  were  like  the  robber-nobles  of  the  JRhine  : 
"  they  rode  the  country  by  night,"  wrote  the  Earl,  "  like 
thieves,  in  parties  of  twenty  or  thirty  or  forty,"  and  gathered 
in  leagues  against  the  Seneschal,  who  set  himself  to  exact 
their  dues  to  the  Crown  and  to  shield  merchant  and  hus- 
bandman from  their  violence.  For  four  years  Earl  Simon 
steadily  warred  down  these  robber  bands,  storming  castles 
where  there  was  need,  and  bridling  the  wilder  country  with 
a  chain  of  forts.  Hard  as  the  task  was,  his  real  difficulty 
lay  at  home.  Henry  sent  neither  money  nor  men  •  and  the 
E;irl  had  to  raise  both  from  his  own  resources,  while  the 
men  whom  he  was  fighting  found  friends  in  Henry's  council- 
chamber.  Again  and  again  Simon  was  recalled  to  answer 
charges  of  tyranny  and  extortion  made  by  the  Gascon  nobles 
and  pressed  by  his  enemies  at  home  on  the  King.  Henry's 
feeble  and  impulsive  temper  left  him  open  to  pressure  like 
this ;  and  though  each  absence  of  the  Earl  from  the  pro- 
vince was  a  signal  for  fresh  outbreaks  of  disorder  which 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


277 


The 

Barons' 
War. 

1232 
1272. 


only  his  presence  repressed,  the  deputies  of  its  nobles  were  CHAP.  III. 
still  admitted  to  the  council-table  and  commissions  sent  over 
to  report  on  the  Seneschal's  administration.  The  strife  came 
to  a  head  in  1252,  when  the  commissioners  reported  that 
stern  as  Simon's  rule  had  been  the  case  was  one  in  which 
sternness  was  needful.  The  English  barons  supported 
Simon,  and  in  the  face  of  their  verdict  Henry  was  powerless. 
But  the  King  was  now  wholly  with  his  enemies ;  and  his 
anger  broke  out  in  a  violent  altercation.  The  Earl  offered 
to  resign  his  post  if  the  money  he  had  spent  was  repaid 
him,  and  appealed  to  Henry's  word.  Ilenry  hotly  retorted 
that  he  was  bound  by  no  promise  to  a  false  traitor. 
Simon  at  once  gave  Henry  the  lie ;  "  and  but  that  thou 
bearest  the  name  of  King  it  had  been  a  bad  hour  for  thee 
when  thou  utteredst  such  a  word ! "  A  formal  recon- 
ciliation was  brought  about,  and  the  Earl  once  more  re- 
turned to  Gascony,  but  before  winter  had  come  he  was 
forced  to  withdraw  to  France.  The  greatness  of  his 
reputation  was  shown  in  an  offer  which  its  nobles  made 
him  of  the  regency  of  their  realm  during  the  absence  of 
Kinff  Lewis  from  the  land.  But  the  offer  was  refused ;  and 

o  * 

Henry,  who  had  himself  undertaken  the  pacification  of 
Gascony,  was  glad  before  the  close  of  1253  to  recall  its 
old  ruler  to  do  the  work  he  had  failed  to  do. 

The  Earl's  character  had  now  thoroughly  developed.  He 
inherited  the  strict  and  severe  piety  of  his  father ;  he  was 
assiduous  in  his  attendance  on  religious  services  whether 
by  night  or  day.  In  his  correspondence  with  Adam  Marsh 
we  see  him  iinding  patience  under  his  Gascon  troubles  in 
a  perusal  of  the  Book  of  Job.  His  life  was  pure  and 
singularly  temperate ;  he  was  noted  for  his  scant  in- 
dulgence in  meat,  drink,  or  sleep.  Socially  he  was  cheer- 
ful and  pleasant  in  talk;  but  his  natural  temper  was 
quick  and  ardent,  his  sense  of  honour  keen,  his  speech 
rapid  and  trenchant.  His  impatience  of  contradiction, 
his  fiery  temper,  were  in  fact  the  great  stumbling-blocks 
in  his  after  career.  His  best  friends  marked  honestlv 

VOL.  I.— 19 


tfimon's 
temper. 


278 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Barons' 
War. 

1232 
1272. 


CHAP.  III.  this  fault,  and  it  shows  the  greatness  of  the  man  that  he 
listened  to  their  remonstrances.  "Better  is  a  patient 
man,"  writes  honest  Friar  Adam,  "  than  a  strong  man,  and 
he  who  can  rule  his  own  temper  than  he  who  storms  a 
city."  But  the  one  characteristic  which  overmastered  all 
was  what  men  at  that  time  called  his  "  constancy,"  the 
firm  irnmoveable  resolve  which  trampled  even  death  under 
foot. in  its  loyalty  to  the  right.  The  motto  which  Edward 
the  First  chose  as  his  device,  "  Keep  troth,"  was  far  truer 
as  the  device  of  Earl  Simon.  We  see  in  his  correspondence 
with  what  a  clear  discernment  of  its  difficulties  both  at 
home  and  abroad  he  "  thought  it  unbecoming  to  decline 
the  danger  of  so  great  an  exploit"  as  the  reduction  of 
Gascony  to  peace  and  order;  but  once  undertaken,  he 
persevered  in  spite  of  the  opposition  he  met  with,  the 
failure  of  all  support  or  funds  from  England,  and  the  King's 
desertion  of  his  cause,  till  the  work  was  done.  There  was 
the  same  steadiness  of  will  and  purpose  in  his  patriotism. 
The  letters  of  Eobert  Grosseteste  show  how  early  Simon  had 
learned  to  sympathize  with  the  Bishop  in  his  resistance  to 
Eome,  arid  at  the  crisis  of  the  contest  he  offered  him 
his  own  support  and  that  of  his  associates.  But  Eobert 
passed  away,  and  as  the  tide  of  misgovernment  mounted 
higher  and  higher  the  Earl  silently  trained  himself  for  the 
day  of  trial.  The  fruit  of  his  self-discipline  was  seen 
when  the  crisis  came.  While  other  men  wavered  and 
faltered  and  fell  away,  the  enthusiastic  love  of  the  people 
clung  to  the  grave,  stern  soldier  who  "  stood  like  a  pillar," 
unshaken  by  promise  or  threat  or  fear  of  death,  by  the 
oath  he  had  sworn. 

While  Simon  had  been  warring  with  Gascon  rebels 
affairs  in  England  had  been  going  from  bad  to  worse.  The 
scourge  of  Papal  taxation  fell  heavier  on  the  clergy.  After 
vain  appeals  to  Eome  and  to  the  King,  Archbishop  Edmund 
retired  to  an  exile  of  despair  at  Pontigny,  and  tax- 
gatherer  after  tax-gatherer  with  powers  of  excommunica- 
tion, suspension  from  orders,  and  presentation  to  benefices, 


Matthew 
Paris. 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


279 


1232 
1273. 


desi.vuded  on  the  unhappy  priesthood.  The  wholesale  CHAP.  III. 
piliiige  kindled  a  wide  spirit  of  resistance.  Oxford  gave  the  xhe 
signal  Ity  hunting  a  papal  legate  out  of  the  city  amid  cries  Bwar.8 
of  "usurer"  and  "siinoniac"  from  the  mob  of  students. 
Fulk  Fitz-Warenne  in  the  name  of  the  barons  bade  a  Papal 
collector  begone  out  of  England.  "  If  you  tarry  here  three 
days  longer,"  he  added,  "you  and  your  company  shall 
be  cut  to  pieces."  For  a  time  Henry  himself  was  swept 
away  by  the  tide  of  national  indignation.  Letters  from 
the  King,  the  nobles,  and  the  prelates,  protested  against 
the  P;ipal  exactions,  and  orders  were  given  that  no  money 
should  be  exported  from  the  realm.  But  the  threat  of 
interdict  soon  drove  Henry  back  on  a  policy  of  spolia- 
tion in  which  he  went  hand  in  hand  with  Koine.  The 
temper  which  this  oppression  begot  among  even  the  most 
sober  churchmen  has  been  preserved  for  us  by  an  annalist 
whose  pages  glow  with  the  new  outburst  of  patriotic  feel- 
ing. Matthew  Paris  is  the  greatest,  as  he  in  reality  is  the 
last,  of  our  monastic  historians.  The  school  of  St.  Alban's 
survived  indeed  till  a  far  later  time,  but  its  writers  dwindle 
into  mere  annalists  whose  view  is  bounded  by  the  abbey 
precincts  and  whose  work  is  as  colourless  as  it  is  jejune. 
In  Matthew  the  breadth  and  precision  of  the  narrative, 
the  copiousness  of  his  information  on  topics  whether 
national  or  European,  the  general  fairness  and  justice  of 
his  comments,  are  only  surpassed  by  the  patriotic  fire  and 
enthusiasm  of  the  whole.  He  had  succeeded  lloger  of 
Wendover  as  chronicler  at  St.  Alban's ;  and  the  Greater 
Chronicle  with  an  abridgement  of  it  which  long  passed 
under  the  name  of  Matthew  of  Westminster,  a  "  History 
of  the  English,"  and  the  "  Lives  of  the  Earlier  Abbots," 
are  only  a  few  among  the  voluminous  works  which 
attest  his  prodigious  industry.  He  was  an  artist  as 
well  as  an  historian,  and  many  of  the  manuscripts 
which  are  preserved  are  illustrated  by  his  own  hand.  A 
large  circle  of  correspondents — bishops  like  Grosseteste, 
ministers  like  Hubert  de*  Burgh,  officials  like  Alexander 


280 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

The 

Barons' 

War. 

1232 
.1272. 


Wales. 


de  Swereford — furnished  him  with  minute  accounts  of 
political  and  ecclesiastical  proceedings.  Pilgrims  from 
the  East  and  Papal  agents  brought  news  of  foreign  events 
to  his  scriptorium  at  St.  Alban's.  He  had  access  to  and 
quotes  largely  from  state  documents,  charters,  and  ex- 
chequer rolls.  The  frequency  of  royal  visits  to  the  abbey 
brought  him  a  store  of  political  intelligence,  and  Henry 
himself  contributed  to  the  great  chronicle  which  has  pre- 
served with  so  terrible  a  faithfulness  the  memory  of  his 
weakness  and  misgovernment.  On  one  solemn  feast-day 
the  King  recognized  Matthew,  and  bidding  him  sit  on  the 
middle  step  between  the  floor  and  the  throne  begged  him 
to  write  the  story  of  the  day's  proceedings.  •  While  on  a 
visit  to  St.  Alban's  he  invited  him  to  his  table  and  chamber, 
and  enumerated  by  name  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  the 
English  baronies  for  his  information.  But  all  this  royal 
patronage  has  left  little  mark  on  his  work.  "  The  case," 
as  Matthew  says,  "  of  historical  writers  is  hard,  for  if  they 
tell  the  truth  they  provoke  men,  and  if  they  write  what  is 
false  they  offend  God."  With  all  the  fullness  of  the 
school  of  court  historians,  such  as  Benedict  and  Hoveden, 
to  which  in  form  he  belonged  Matthew  Paris  combines  an 
independence  and  patriotism  which  is  strange  to  their 
pages.  He  denounces  with  the  same  unsparing  energy  the 
oppression  of  the  Pnpacy  and  of  the  King.  His  point  of 
aim  is  neither  that  of  a  courtier  nor  of  a  churchman  but 
of  an  Englishman,  and  the  new  national  tone  of  his 
chronicle  is  but  the  echo  of  a  national  sentiment  which  at 
last  bound  nobles  and  yeomen  and  churchmen  together 
into  a  people  resolute  to  wrest  freedom  from  the  Crown. 

The  nation  was  outraged  like  the  Church.  Two  solemn 
confirmations  of  the  Charter  failed  to  bring  about  any 
compliance  with  its  provisions.  In  1248,  in  1249,  and 
again  in  1255  the  great  Council  fruitlessly  renewed  its 
demand  for  a  regular  ministry,  and  the  growing  resolve  of 
the  nobles  to  enforce  good  government  was  seen  in  their 
offer  of  a  grant  on  condition  that  the  great  officers  of  the 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  281 

Crown  were  appointed  in  the  Council   of  the  Baronage.  CHAP.  III. 
But  Henry  refused  their  otter  with  scorn  and  sold  his  plate        The 
to  the  citizens  of  London  to  find  payment  for  his  house-       war* 
hold.      A  spirit  of  mutinous  defiance  broke  out  on  the     1232- 
failure  of  all  legal  remedy.     When  the  Earl  of  Norfolk     1^?" 
refused  him  aid  Henry  answered  with  a  threat.     "  I  will 
send  reapers  and  reap  your  fields  for  you,"  he  said.    "  And 
I  will  send  you  back  the  heads  of  your  reapers,"  replied  the 
Earl.    Hampered  by  the  profusion  of  the  court  and  the  re- 
fusal of  supplies,  the  Crown  was  in  fact  penniless  ;  and  yet 
never  was  money  more  wanted,  for  a  trouble  which  had 
long  pressed  upon  the  English  kings  had  now  grown  to  a 
height  that  called  for  decisive  action.     Even  his  troubles 
at  home  could  not  blind  Henry  to  the  need  of  dealing 
with  the  difficulty  of  Wales.     Of  the  three  Welsh  states 
into  which  all  that  remained  unconquered  of  Britain  had 
been  broken  by  the  victories  of  Deorham  and  Chester,  two 
had   long   ceased    to    exist.      The  country    between   the 
Clyde  and  the  Dee  had  been  gradually  absorbed  by  the 
conquests   of  Northumbria   and  the  growth  of  the  Scot 
monarchy.      West  Wales,   between    the  British    Channel 
and  the  estuary  of  the  Severn,  had  yielded  to  the  sword 
of  Ecgberht.     But  a  fiercer  resistance  prolonged  the  inde- 
pendence  of  the    great   central    portion  which    alone  in 
modern  language  preserves -the  name  of  Wales.    Comprizing 
in  itself   the  largest   and    most   powerful  of  the   British 
kingdoms,  it  was  aided  in  its  struggle  against  Mercm  by 
the  weakness  of  its  assailant,  the  youngest  and  feeblest 
of  the  English  states,  as  well  as  by  an  internal  warfare 
which  distracted  the  energies  of  the  invaders.    But  Mercia 
had   no    suoner  risen  to  supremacy  among   the  English 
kingdoms  than  it  took  the  work  of  conquest  vigorously 
in  hand,     Gffa  tore  from  Wales  the  border  land  between 
the  Severn  and  the  Wye ;    the   raids   of  his  successors 
carried  fire   and   sword  into   the  heart   of    the  country ; 
and  an  acknowledgement  of  the   Mercian  over-lordship 
was  wrested  from  the  Welsh   princes.       On  the  fall  of 


282 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  Ill, 

The 

Barons' 

War. 

1232 
1272. 


Wales 

and  the 

Normans. 


Mercia  this  overlordship  passed  to  the  West -Saxon  kings, 
and  the  Laws  of  Howel  Dda  own  the  payment  of  a 
yearly  tribute  by  "  the  prince  of  Aberffraw "  to  "  the 
King  of  London."  The  weakness  of  England  during  her 
long  struggle  with  the  Danes  revived  the  hopes  of  British 
independence  ;  it  was  the  co-operation  of  the  Welsh  on 
which  the  Northmen  reckoned  in  their  attack  on  the 
house  of  Ecgberht.  But  with  the  fall  of  the  Danelagh 
the  British  princes  were  again  brought  to  submission,  and 
when  in  the  midst  of  the  Confessor's  reign  the  Welsh 
seized  on  a  quarrel  between  the  houses  of  Leofric  and 
God  wine  to  cross  the  border  and  carry  their  attacks  into 
England  itself,  the  victories  of  Harold  re-asserted  the 
English  supremacy.  Disembarking  on  the  coast  his  light- 
armed  troops  he  penetrated  to  the  heart  of  the  mountains, 
and  the  successors  of  the  Welsh  prince  Gruffydd,  whose  hoad 
was  the  trophy  of  the  campaign,  swore  to  observe  the  old 
fealty  and  render  the  whole  tribute  to  the  English  Crown. 
A  far  more  desperate  struggle  began  when  the  wave  of 
Norman  conquest  broke  on  the  Welsh  frontier.  A  chain 
of  great  earldoms,  settled  by  William  along  the  border-land, 
at  once  bridled  the  old  maraud  ing  forays.  From  his  county 
palatine  of  Chester  Hugh  the  Wolf  harried  Flintshire  into 
a  desert,  Kobert  of  Belesme  in  his  earldom  of  Shrewsbury 
"  slew  the  Welsh,"  says  a  chronicler,  "  like  sheep,  con- 
quered them,  enslaved  them  and  flayed  them  with  nails 
of  iron."  The  earldom  of  Gloucester  curbed  Britain  along 
the  lower  Severn.  Backed  by  these  greater  baronies  a 
horde  of  lesser  adventurers  obtained  the  royal  "licence  to 
make  conquest  on  the  Welsh."  Moumouth  and  Aber- 
gavenny  were  seized  and  guaided  by  Norman  castellans; 
Bernard  of  Neufmarche"  won  the  lordship  of  Brecknock ; 
Roger  of  Montgomery  raised  the  town  .and  fortress  in 
Powysland  which  still  preserves  his  name.  A  great  rising 
of  the  whole  people  in  the  days  of  the  second  William 
won  back  some  of  this  Norman  spoil.  The  new  castle 
of  Montgomery  was  burned,  Brecknock  and  Cardigan 


HI.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  283 

were    cleared   of    the   invaders,    and    the    Welsh    poured  CHAP.  ill. 
ravaging  over  the  English  border.     Twice  the  lied  King        ^ 
carried  his  arms  fruitlessly  among  the  mountains  against     Bwar.8 
enemies   who  took  refuge  in  their  fastnesses  till  famine      1232 
and  hardship  drove  his  broken  host   into  retreat.      The      127a- 
wiser  policy  of  Henry  the  First  fell  back  on  his  father's 
system  of  gradual  conquest.     A  new  tide  of  invasion  flowed 
along  the  southern  coast,  where  the  land  was  level  and  open 
and  accessible  from  the  sea.     The  attack  was  aided  by  strife 
in   the   country    itself,     Itobert   Fitz-Hamo,    the   lord   of 
Gloucester,  was  summoned  to  his  aid  b}  a  Welsh  chieftain  ; 
and  his  defeat  of  Ithys  ap  Tewdor,  the  last  prince  under 
whom  Southern  Wales  was  united,  produced  an  anarchy 
which  enabled  ttobert  to   land    safely   on   the    coast    of 
Glamorgan,  to  conquer  the  country  round,  and  to  divide 
it  among  his  soldiers.     A  force  of  Flemings,  and  English- 
men followed  the  Earl  of  Clare  as  he  landed  near  Milford 
Haven  and  pushing  back  the  British  inhabitants  settled 
a  "  Little  England  "  in  the  present  Pembrokeshire.    A  few 
daring    adventurers    accompanied    the   Norman   Lord   of 
Kemeys  into  Cardigan,  where  land  might  be  had  for  the 
winning  by  any  one  who  would  "  wage  war  on  the  Welsh." 

It  was  at  this  moment,  when  the  utter  subjugation  of  The 
the  British  race  seemed  at  hand,  that  a  new  outburst  of  Welsh 
energy  rolled  back  the  tide  of  invasion  and  changed  the 
fitful  resistance  of  the  separate  Welsh  provinces  into  a 
national  effort  to  regain  independence.  To  all  outer  seem- 
ing Wales  had  become  utterly  barbarous.  Stripped  of  every 
vestige  of  the  older  Eoman  civilization  by  ages  of  bitter  war- 
fare, of  civil  strife,  of  estrangement  i'rom  the  general  culture 
of  Christendom,  the  uriconquered  Britons  had  sunk  into  a 
mass  of  savage  herdsmen,  clad  in  the  skins  and  fed  by 
the  milk  of  the  cattle  they  tended.  Faithless,  greedy,  and 
revengeful,  retaining  no  higher  political  organization  than 
that  of  the  clan,  their  strength  was  broken  by  ruthless 
feuds,  and  they  were  united  only  in  battle  or  in  raid 
against  the  stranger.  But  in  the  heart  of  the  wild  people 


284 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOR 


The 

Barons' 
War. 

1232 
1272. 


CHAP.  III.  there  still  lingered  a  spark  of  the  poetic  fire  which  had 
nerved  it  four  hundred  years  before  through  Aneurin  und 
Llywarch  Hen  to  its  struggle  with  the  earliest  Englishmen. 
At  the  hour  of  its  lowest  degradation  the  silence  of  Wales 
was  suddenly  broken  by  a  crowd  of  singers.  The  song 
of  the  twelfth  century  burst  forth,  not  from  one  bard  or 
another,  but  from  the  nation  at  large.  The  Welsh  temper 
indeed  was  steeped  in  poetry.  "  In  every  house,"  says  the 
shrewd  Gerald  du  Barri,  "  strangers  who  arrived  in  the 
morning  were  entertained  till  eventide  with  the  talk  of 
maidens  and  the  music  of  the  harp:*  A  romantic  literature, 
which  was  destined  to  leaven  the  fancy  of  western  Europe, 
had  grown  up  among  this  wild  people  and  found  an 
admirable  means  of  utterance  in  its  tongue.  The  Welsh 
language  was  as  real  a  developement  of  the  old  Celtic 
language  heard  by  Caesar  as  tho  Romance  tongues  are 
developements  of  Cassar's  Latin,  but  at  a  far  earlier  date 
than  any  other  language  of  modern  Europe  it  had  attained 
to  definite  structure  and  to  settled  literacy  form.  No 
other  mediaeval  literature  shows  at  its  outset  the  same 
elaborate  and  completed  organization  as  that  of  the 
Welsh.  But  within  these  settled  forms  the  Celtic  fancy 
played  with  a  startling  freedom.  In  one  of  the  later 
poems  Gwion  the  Little  transforms  himself  into  a  hare, 
a  fish,  a  bird,  a  grain  of  wheat;  but  he  is  only  the 
symbol  of  the  strange  shapes  in  which  the  Celtic  fancy 
embodies  itself  in  the  romantic  tales  which  reached  their 
highest  perfection  in  the  legends  of  Arthur. 

The  gay  extravagance  of  these  "Mabinogion"  flings 
defiance  to  all  fact,  tradition,  probability,  and  revels 
in  the  impossible  and  unreal.  When  Arthur  sails  into 
the  unknown  world  it  is  in  a  ship  of  glass.  The 
"  descent  into  hell,"  as  a  Celtic  poet  paints  it,  shakes 
off  the  mediaeval  horror  with  the  mediaeval  reverence, 
and  the  knight  who  achieves  the  quest  spends  his 
years  of  infernal  durance  in  hunting  and  minstrelsy, 
and  in  converse  with  fair  women.  The  world  of  the 


The 

Welsh 
Poetry. 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


285 


1232 
1272. 


Mabinogion  is  a  world  of  pure  phantasy,  a  new  earth  of  CHAP.  III. 
marvels  and  enchantments,  of  dark  forests  whose  silence        xhe 
is  broken  by  the  hermit's  bell  and  sunny  glades  where  the     Bwar s 
light  plays  on  the  hero's  armour.     Each  figure  as  it  moves 
across  the  poet's  canvas  is  bright  with  glancing  colour. 
"  The  maiden  was  clothed  in  a  robe  of  flame-coloured  silk, 
and  about  her  neck  was  a  collar  of  ruddy  gold  in  which 
were   precious   emeralds    and  rubies.     Her  head  was   of 
brighter  gold  than  the  flower  of  the  broom,  her  skin  was 
whiter  than  the  foam  of  the  wave,  and  fairer  were  her 
hands  and  her  fingers  than  the  blossoms  of  the   wood- 
anemone  amidst  the  spray  of  the  meadow  fountain.    The  eye 
of  the  trained  hawk,  the  glance  of  the  falcon,  was  not  brighter 
than  hers.     Her  bosom  was  more  snowy  than  the  breast  of 
the  white  swan,  her  cheek  was  redder  than  the  reddest  roses." 
Everywhere  there  is   an  Oriental  profusion    of   gorgeous 
imagery,  but  the  gorgeousness  is  seldom  oppressive.     The 
sensibility    of    the   Celtic  temper,   so   quick   to  perceive 
beauty,  so  eager  in  its  thirst   for  life,  its  emotions,  its 
adventures,  its  sorrows,  its  joys,  is  tempered  by  a  passion- 
ate melancholy  that  expresses  its  revolt  against  the  impos- 
sible, by  an  instinct  of  what  is  noble,  by  a  sentiment  that 
discovers    the    weird    charm    of    nature.      The    wildest 
extravagance    of    the    tale-teller    is    relieved    by    some 
graceful    play    of    pure    fancy,   some    tender    note    of 
feeling,    some    magical   touch    of  beauty.      As  Kalweh's 
greyhounds   bound  from   side  to   side  of   their  master's 
steed,  they  "sport  round    him   like   two   sea-swallows." 
His  spear  is  "  swifter  than  the  fall  of  the  dewdrop  from 
the  blade  of  reed-grass  upon  the  earth  when  the  dew  of 
June   is   at  the  heaviest."     A  subtle,  observant  love   of 
nature   and  natural  beauty  takes  fresh  colour  from  the 
passionate   human   sentiment   with  which  it   is  imbued. 
"I  love  the  birds"    sings    Gwalchmai  "and  their  sweet 
voices  in   the  lulling  songs  of  the   wood;"  he  watches 
at  night  beside  the  fords  "among  the  untrodden  grass  "  to 
hear  the  nightingale  and  watch  the  play  of  the  sea-mew. 


286 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

The 

Barons' 
War. 

1232 
1272. 


The 
Bards. 


Even  patriotism  takes  the  same  picturesque  form.  The 
Welsh  poet  hates  the  flat  and  sluggish  land  of  the 
Saxon ;  as  he  dwells  on  his  own  he  tells  of  "  its  sea- 
coast  and  its  mountains,  its  towns  on  the  forest  border, 
its  fair  landscape,  its  dales,  its  waters,  and  its  valleys, 
its  white  sea-mews,  •  its  beauteous  women."  Here  as 
everywhere  the  sentiment  of  nature  passes  swiftly  and 
subtly  into  the  sentiment  of  a  human  tenderness :  "  I 
love  its  fields  clothed  with  tender  trefoil "  goes  on  the 
song ;  "  I  love  the  marches  of  Merioneth  where  my  head 
was  pillowed  on  a  snow-white  arm."  In  the  Celtic  love 
of  woman  there  is  little  of  the  Teutonic  depth  and 
earnestness,  but  in  its  stead  a  childlike  spirit  of  delicate 
enjoyment,  a  faint  distant  flush  of  passion  like  the  rose- 
light  of  dawn  on  a  snowy  mountain  peak,  a  playful  delight 
in  beauty.  "  White  is  my  love  as  the  apple  blossom,  as  the 
ocean's  spray  ;  her  face  shines  like  the  pearly  dew  on  Eryri  ; 
the  glow  of  her  cheeks  is  like  the  light  of  sunset."  The 
buoyant  and  elastic  temper  of  the  French  trouveur  was 
spiritualized  in  the  Welsh  singers  by  a  more  refined  poetic 
feeling.  "  Whoso  beheld  her  was  filled  with  her  love. 
Four  white  trefoils  sprang  up  wherever  she  trod."  A 
touch  of  pure  fancy  such  as  this  removes  its  object  out  of 
the  sphere  of  passion  into  one  of  delight  and  reverence. 

It  is  strange  to  pass  from  the  world  of  actual  Welsh 
history  into  such  a  world  as  this.  But  side  by  side  with 
this  waysvard,  fanciful  stream  of  poesy  and  romance  ran 
a  torrent  of  intenser  song.  The  spirit  of  the  earlier  bards, 
their  joy  in  battle,  their  love  of  freedom, -broke  out  anew 
in  ode  after  ode,  in  songs  extravagant,  monotonous,  often 
prosaic,  but  fused  into  poetry  by  the  intense  tire  of 
patriotism  which  glowed  within  them.  Every  fight,  every 
hero  had  its  verse.  The  names  of  older  singers,  of  Taliesin, 
Aneurin,  and  Lly  warch  Hen,  were  revived  in  bold  forgeries 
to  animate  the  national  resistance  and  to  prophesy  victory. 
It  was  in  North  Wales  that  the  spirit  of  patriotism  re- 
ceived its  strongest  inspiration  from  this  burst  of  song. 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  287 

Again  and  again  Henry  the  Second  was  driven  to  retreat  CHAP.  III. 
from    the   impregnable   fastnesses   where   the   "  Lords  of       ^0 
Snowdon,"  the  princes  of  the  house  of  Gruffydd  ap  Conan,     Bwar.8 
claimed  supremacy  over  the  whole  of  Wales.     Once  in  the      jaaa- 
pass  of  Consilt  a  cry  arose  that  the  King  was  slain,  Henry      x^a- 
of  Essex  flung  down  the  royal  standard,  and  the  King's 
desperate  efforts  could  hardly  save  his  army  from  utter 
rout.      The  bitter  satire  of  the  Welsh  singers  bade  him 
knight  his  horse,  since  its  speed  had  alone  saved  him  from 
capture.     In  a  later  campaign  the  invaders  were  met  by 
storms  of  rain,  and  forced  to  abandon  their  baggage  in  a 
headlong  flight  to  Chester.     The  greatest  of  the    Welsh 
odes,  that  known  to  English  readers  in  Gray's  translation 
as  "  The  Triumph  of  Owen,"  is  Gwalchmai's  song  of  victory 
over  the  repulse  of  an  English  fleet  from  Abermenai. 

The  long  reign  of  Llewelyn  the  son  of  Jorwerth  seemed   Lleicetyn 

destined  to  realize  the  hopes  of   his  countrymen.      The    T  aj)  ., 
1-11  i  •  •,.,,!      Jorwerth. 

homage  which  he  succeeded  in  extorting  irom  the  whole 

of  the  Welsh  chieftains  during  a  reign  which  lasted 
from  1194  to  1240  placed  him  openly  at  the  head  of  his 
race,  and  gave  a  new  character  to  its  struggle  with 
the  English  King.  In  consolidating  his  authority  within 
his  own  domains,  and  in  the  assertion  of  his  lordship 
over  the  princes  of  the  south,  Llewelyn  ap  Jonveith 
aimed  steadily  at  securing  the  means  of  striking  off  the 
yoke  of  the  Saxon,  It  was  in  vain  that  John  strove 
to  buy  his  friendship  by  the  hand  of  his  natural  daughter 
Johanna.  Fresh  raids  on  the  Marches  forced  the  King 
to  enter  Wales  in  1211  ;  but  though  his  army  reached 
Snowdon  it  fell  back  like  its  predecessors,  starved  and 
broken  before  an  enemy  it  could  never  reach.  A  second 
attack  in  the  same  year  had  better  success.  The  chief- 
tains of  South  Wales  were  drawn  from  their  new  allegiance 
to  join  the  English  forces,  and  Lle\\  elyn,  prisoned  in  his 
fastnesses,  was  at  last  driven  to  submit.  But  the  ink  of 
the  treaty  was  hardly  dry  before  Wales  was  again  on 
fire ;  a  common  fear  of  the  English  once  more  united  its 


288 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

The 

Barons' 
War, 

1232 
1272. 


Llewelyn 
and  the 
Bards. 


chieftains,  and  the  war  between  John  and  his  barons  soon 
removed  all  dread  of  a  new  invasion.  Absolved  from  his 
allegiance  to  an  excommunicated  King,  and  allied  with  the 
barons  under  Fitzwalter — too  glad  to  enlist  in  their  cause  a 
prince  who  could  hold  in  check  the  nobles  of  the  border 
country  where  the  royalist  cause  was  strongest — Llewelyn 
seized  his  opportunity  to  reduce  Shrewsbury,  to  annex 
Powys,  the  central  district  of  Wales  where  the  English  in- 
fluence had  always  been  powerful,  to  clear  the  royal  garri- 
sons from  Caerrnarthen  and  Cardigan,  and  to  force  even 
the  Fleniings  of  Pembroke  to  do  him  homage. 

England  watched  these  efforts  of  the  subject  race  with 
an  anger  still  mingled  with  contempt.  "  Who  knows  not," 
exclaims  Matthew  Paris  as  he  dwells  on  the  new  pretensions 
of  the  Welsh  ruler,  "  who  knows  not  that  the  Prince  of 
Wales  is  a  petty  vassal  of  the  King  of  England  ? "  But 
the  temper  of  Llewelyn's  own  people  was  far  other  than 
the  temper  of  the  English  chronicler.  The  hopes  of  Wales 
rose  higher  and  higher  with  each  triumph  of  the  Lord  of 
Snowdon.  His  court  was  crowded  with  bardic  singers. 
"  He  pours,"  sings  one  of  them,  "  his  gold  into  the  lap  of 
the  bard  as  the  ripe  fruit  falls  from  the  trees."  Gold 
however  was  hardly  needed  to  wake  their  enthusiasm. 
Poet  after  poet  sang  of  "  the  Devastator  of  England,"  the 
"  Eagle  of  men  that  loves  not  to  lie  nor  sleep,"  "  towering 
above  the  rest  of  men  with  his  long  red  lance,"  his  "  red 
helmet  of  battle  crested  with  a  fierce  wolf."  "  The  sound  of 
his  coming  is  like  the  roar  of  the  wave  as  it  rushes  to  the 
shore,  that  can  neither  be  stnyed  nor  hushed."  Lesser  bards 
strung  together  Llewelyn's  victories  in  rough  jingle  of  rime 
and  hounded  him  on  to  the  slaughter.  "  Be  of  good  courage 
in  the  slaughter,"  sings  Elidir,  "  cling  to  thy  work,  destroy 
England,  and  plunder  its  multitudes."  A  fierce  thirst  for 
blood  runs  through  the  abrupt,  passionate  verses  of  the 
court  singers.  "  Swansea,  that  tranquil  town,  was  broken 
in  heaps,"  bursts  out  a  triumphant  bard  ;  "  St.  Clears,  with 
its  bright  white  lands,  it  is  not  Saxons  who  hold  it  now  ! " 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


289 


"  In  Swansea,  the  key  of  Lloegria,  we  made  widows  of  all 
the  wives."  "  The  dread  Eagle  is  wont  to  lay  corpses  in 
rows,  and  to  feast  with  the  leader  of  wolves  and  with 
hovering  ravens  glutted  with  flesh,  butchers  with  keen 
scent  of  carcases."  "  Better,"  closes  the  song,  "  better  the 
grave  than  the  life  of  man  who  sighs  when  the  horns  call 
him  forth  to  the  squares  of  battle." 

But    even   in    bardic   verse    Llewelyn  rises    high   out 
of  the  mere  mob  of  chieftains  who  live  by  rapine,  and 
boast   as    the    Hirlas-horn    passes    from    hand    to     hand 
through  the  hall  that  "  they  take  and  give  no  'quarter." 
"  Tender-hearted,   wise,   witty,    ingenious,"  he   was    "  the 
great  Caesar  "  who  was  to  gather  beneath  his  sway  the 
broken  fragments  of  the  Celtic  race.    Mysterious  prophecies, 
the  prophecies  of  Merlin  the  Wise  which  floated  from  lip  to 
lip  and  were  heard  even  along  the  Seine  and  the  llhme, 
came  home  again  to  nerve  Wales  to  its  last  struggle  with 
the  stranger.     Medrawd  and  Arthur,  men  whispered,  would 
appear  once  more  on  earth  to  fight  over  again  the  fatal 
battle  of  Camlan  in  which  the  hero-king  perished.^   The 
last  conqueror  of  the  Celtic  race,  Cadwallon,  still  lived  to 
combat   for  his  people.     The  supposed  verses  of  Taliesin 
expressed  the  undying  hope  of  a  restoration  of  the  Cymry. 
"  In  their  hands  shall  be  all  the  land  from  Brittany  to  Man  : 
...  a   rumour  shall  arise  that  the  Germans  are  moving 
out  of  Britain  back  again  to  their  fatherland."     Gatheied 
up   in  the  strange  work  of  Geoffry  of  Monmouth,  these 
predictions  had  long  been  making  a  deep  impression  not 
on  Wales  only  but  on  its  conquerors.      It  was  to  meet 
the  dreams  of  a  yet  living  Arthur  that  the  grave  of  the 
legendary  hero-king  at  Glastonbury  was  found  and  visited 
by   Henry  the    Second.     But  neither  trick  nor  conquest 
could  shake  the  firm  faith  of  the  Celt  in  the  ultimate 
victory  of  his  race.     "Think  you,"  said  Henry  to  a  Welsh 
chieftain  who  joined  his  host,  "  that  your  people  of  rebels 
can   withstand   my   army  ?  "     "  My  people,"   replied   the 
chieftain,  "may  be  weakened  by  your  might,  and  even 


CHAP.  III. 


1232- 
1272. 


The 
Welsh 
hopes. 


290  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  in  great  part  destroyed,  but  unless  the  wrath  of  God  be 

^        on  the  side  of  its  foe  it  will   not   perish   utterly.     Nor 

BWar8      deem  I  that  other  race  or  other  tongue  will  answer  for 

1232-     tliis  corner  of  the  world  before  the  Judge  of  all  at  the 

ia7a-      last  day   save  this   people    and   tongue  of  Wales."      So 

ran  the  popular  rime,  "  Their  Lord  they  will  praise,  their 

speech  they  shall  keep,  their  land  they  shall  lose — except 

wild  Wales." 

The  Faith  and  prophecy  seemed  justified  by  the  growing 

Provisions  streng.tjl  of  t]ie  British  people.  The  weakness  and  dis- 
Oxford.  sensinns  which  characterized  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Third 
enabled  Llewelyn  ap  Jorwerth  to  preserve  a  practical 
independence  till  the  close  of  his  life,  when  a  fresh 
acknowledgement  of  the  English  supremacy  was  wrested 
from  him  by  Archbishop  Edmund.  But  the  triumphs  of 
his  arms  were  renewed  by  Llewelyn  the  son  of  Gryffydd, 
who  followed  him  in  1246.  The  raids  of  the  new  chieftain 
swept  the  border  to  the  very  gates  of  Chester,  while  his 
conquest  of  Glamorgan  seemed  to  bind  the  whole  people 
together  in  a  power  strong  enough  to  meet  any  attack  from 
the  stranger.  So  pressing  was  the  danger  that  it  called  the 
King's  eldest  son,  Edward,  to  the  field ;  but  his  first  appear- 
ance in  arms  ended  in  a  crushing  defeat.  The  defeat 
however  remained  unavenged.  Henry's  dreams  were  of 
mightier  enterprizes  than  the  reduction  of  the  Welsh.  The 
Popes  were  still  fighting  their  weary  battle  against  the 
House  of  Hohenstaufen,  and  were  offering  its  kingdom  of 
Sicily,  which  they  regarded  as  a  forfeited  fief  of  the  Holy 
See,  to  any  power  that  would  aid  them  in  the  struggle. 
In  1254  it  was  offered  to  the  King's  second  son,  Edmund. 
>  With  imbecile  pride  Henry  accepted  the  offer,  prepared  to 
send  an  army  across  the  Alps,  and  pledged  England  to 
repay  the  sums  which  the  Pope  was  borrowing  for  the 
purposes  of  his  war.  In  a  Parliament  at  the  opening  of 
1257  he  demanded  an  aid  and  a  tenth  from  the  clergy.  A 
fresh  demand  was  made  in  1258.  But  the  patience  of 
the  realm  was  at  last  exhausted.  Earl  Simon  had  returned 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  291 

in  1253  from  his  government  of  Gascony,  and  the  fruit  of  CHAP.  III. 
his  meditations  during  the  four  years  of  his  quiet  stay  at  ^ 
home,  a  quiet  broken  only  by  short  embassies  to  France  B^ar8 
and  Scotland  which  showed  there  was  as  yet  no  open  quarrel  1232- 
witli  Henry,  was  seen  in  a  league  of  the  baronage  and  in  ia72 
their  adoption  of  a  new  and  startling  policy.  The  past 
half  century  had  shown  both  the  strength  and  weakness  of 
the  Charter :  its  strength  as  a  rally  ing-point  for  the 
baronage  and  a  definite  assertion  of  rights  which  the  King 
could  be  made  to  acknowledge ;  its  weakness  in  providing 
no  means  for  the  enforcement  of  its  own  stipulations. 
Henry  had  sworn  again  and  again  to  observe  the  Charter 
and  his  oath  was  110  sooner  taken  than  it  was  unscru- 
pulously broken.  The  barons  had  secured  the  freedom  of 
the  realm:  the  secret  of  their  long  patience  during  the 
reign  of  Henry  lay  hi  the  difficulty  of  securing  its  right 
administration.  It  was  this  difficulty  winch  Earl  Simon 
wa.s  prepared  to  solve  when  action  was  forced  on  him  by 
the  stir  of  the  realm.  A  great  famine  added  to  the  sense 
of  danger  from  Wales  and  from  Scotland  and  to  the 
irritation  at  the  new  demands  from  both  Henry  and 
Borne  with  which  the  year  1258  opened.  It  was  to  arrange 
for  a  campaign  against  Wales  that  Henry  called  a  parlia- 
ment in  April.  But  the  baronage  appeared  in  arms  with 
Gloucester  and  Leicester  at  their  head.  The  King  was 
forced  to  consent  to  the  appointment  of  a  committee  of 
twenty-four  to  draw  up  terms  for  the  reform  of  the  state. 
The  Twenty-four  again  met  the  Parliament  at  Oxford  in 
June,  and  although  half  the  committee  consisted  of  royal 
ministers  and  favourites  it  was  impossible  to  resist  the . 
tide  of  popular  feeling.  Hugh  Bigod,  one  of  the  firmest 
adherents  of  the  two  Earls,  was  chosen  as  Justiciar.  The 
claim  to  elect  this  great  officer  was  in  fact  the  leading 
point  in  the  baronial  policy.  But  further  measures  were 
needed  to  hold  in  check  such  arbitrary  misgovernment  as 
had  prevailed  during  the  past  twenty  years.  By  the  "  Pro- 
visions of  Oxford  "  it  was  agreed  that  the  Great  Council 


292 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

The 

Borons' 

War. 

1232 
1272. 


Govern- 
ment 
of  the 

Barons. 


should  assemble  thrice  in  the  year,  whether  summoned 
by  the  King  or  no  ;  and  on  each  occasion  "  the  Com- 
monalty shall  elect  twelve  honest  men  who  shall  come 
to  the  Parliaments,  and  at  other  times  when  occasion  shall 
be  when  the  King  and  his  Council  shall  send  for  them, 
to  treat  of  the  wants  of  the  King  and  of  his  kingdom. 
And  the  Commonalty  shall  hold  as  established  that 
which  these  Twelve  shall  do."  Three  permanent  com- 
mittees of  barons  and  prelates  were  named  to  carry  out 
the  work  of  reform  and  administration.  The  reform  of 
the  Church  was  left  to  the  original  Twenty-Four;  a  second 
Twenty-Four  negotiated  the  financial  aids ;  a  Perma- 
nent Council  of  Fifteen  advised  the  King  in  the  ordinary 
work  of  Government.  The  complexity  of  such  an  arrange- 
ment was  relieved  by  the  fact  that  the  members  of  each  of 
these  committees  were  in  great  part  the  same  persons. 
The  Justiciar,  Chancellor,  and  the  guardians  of  the  King's 
castles  swore  to  act  only  with  the  advice  and  assent  of  the 
Permanent  Council,  and  the  first  two  great  officers,  with 
the  Treasurer,  were  to  give  account  of  their  proceedings 
to  it  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Sheriffs  were  to  be  appointed 
for  a  single  year  only,  no  doubt  by  the  Council,  from 
among  the  chief  tenants  of  the  county,  and  no  undue 
fees  were  to  be  exacted  for  the  administration  of  justice 
in  their  court. 

A  royal  proclamation  in  the  English  tongue,  the  first  in 
that  tongue  since  the  Conquest  which  has  reached  us,  ordered 
the  observance  of  these  Provisions.  The  King  was  in 
fact  helpless,  and  resistance  came  only  from  the  foreign 
.favourites,  who  refused  to  surrender  the  castles  and 
honours  which  had  been  granted  to  them.  But  the  Twenty- 
four  were  resolute  in  their  action  :  and  an  armed  demon- 
stration of  the  barons  drove  the  foreigners  in  flight  over 
sea.  The  whole  royal  power  was  now  in  fact  in  the  hands 
of  the  committees  appointed  by  the  Great  Council.  But 
the  measures  of  the  barons  showed  little  of  the  wisdom 
and  energy  which  the  country  had  hoped  for.  In  October 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


293 


The 

Barons' 
War. 

1232 
1272. 


1259  the  knighthood  complained  that  the  barons  had  done  CHAP.  III. 
nothing  but  seek  their  own  advantage  in  the  recent 
changes.  This  protest  produced  the  Provisions  of  West- 
minster, which  gave  protection  to  tenants  against  their 
feudal  lords,  regulated  legal  procedure  in  the  feudal  courts, 
appointed  four  knights  in  each  shire  to  watch  the  justice 
of  the  sheriffs,  and  made  other  temporary  enactments  for 
the  furtherance  of  justice.  But  these  Provisions  brought 
little  fruit,  and  a  tendency  to  mere  feudal  privilege  showed 
itself  in  an  exemption  of  all  nobles  and  prelates  from 
attendance  at  the  Sheriff's  courts.  Their  foreign  policy 
was  more  vigorous  and  successful.  All  further  payment 
to  Eome,  whether  secular  or  ecclesiastical,  was  prohibited  ; 
formal  notice  was  given  to  the  Pope  of  England's  with- 
drawal from  the  Sicilian  enterprize,  peace  put  an  end 
to  the  incursions  of  the  Welsh,  and  negotiations  on  the 
footing  of  a  formal  abandonment  of  the  King's  claim  to 
Xormandy,  Anjou,  Maine,  Touraine,  and  Poitou  ended  in 
October,  1259,  in  a  peace  with  France. 

This  peace,  the  triumph  of  that  English  policy  which 
had  been  struggling  ever  since  the  days  of  Hubert  de 
Burgh  with  the  Continental  policy  of  Henry  and  his  foreign 
advisers,  was  the  work  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester.  The  revo- 
lution had  doubtless  been  mainly  Simon's  doing.  In  the 
summer  of  1258,  while  the  great  change  was  going  on,  a 
thunder  storm  drove  the  King  as  he  passed  along  the 
river  to  the  house  of  the  Bishop  of  Durham  where  the 
Earl  was  then  sojourning.  Simon  bade  Henry  take  shelter 
with  him  and  have  no  fear  of  the  storm.  The  King 
refused  with  petulant  wit.  "  If  I  fear  the  thunder,  I  fear 
you,  Sir  Earl,  more  than  all  the  thunder  in  the  world."  But 
Simon  had  probably  small  faith  in  the  cumbrous  system 
of  government  which  the  Barons  devised,  and  it  was  with 
reluctance  that  he  was  brought  to  swear  to  the  Provisions  of 
Oxford  which  embodied  it.  With  their  home  government 
he  had  little  to  do,  for  from  the  autumn  of  1258  to  that 
of  1259  he  was  chiefly  busied  in  negotiation  in  France, 
i  VOL.  I.—20 


Simon 

and  the 

Baronage. 


294 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1232- 
1272. 


CHAP.  III.  But  already  his  breach  with  Gloucester  and  the  bulk  of 
^e  his  fellow  councillors  was  marked.  In  the  Lent  Parlia- 
BWar8  raent  of  1259  he  had  reproached  them,  and  Gloucester 
above  all,  with  faithlessness  to  their  trust.  "  The  things 
we  are  treating  of,"  he  cried,  "  we  have  sworn  to  carry  out. 
With  such  feeble  and  faithless  men  I  care  not  to  have 
ought  to  do  !  "  The  peace  with  France  was  hardly  signed 
when  his  distrust  of  his  colleagues  was  verified.  Henry's 
withdrawal  to  the  French  court  at  the  close  of  the  year 
for  the  formal  signature  of  the  treaty  was  the  signal  for  a 
reactionary  movement.  From  France  the  King  forbade  the 
summoning  of  a  Lent  Parliament  in  1260  and  announced 
his  resumption  of  the  enterprize  against  Sicily.  Both  acts 
were  distinct  breaches  of  the  Provisions  of  Oxford,  but 
Henry  trusted  to  the  divisions  of  the  Twenty-Four. 
Gloucester  was  in  open  feud  with  Leicester ;  the  Justiciar, 
Hugh  Bigod,  resigned  his  office  in  the  spring  ;  and  both  of 
these  leaders  drew  cautiously  to  the  King,  Roger  Mor- 
timer and  the  Earls  of  Hereford  and  Norfolk  more  openly 
espoused  the  royal  cause,  and  in  February  1260  Henry 
had  gained  confidence  enough  to  announce  that  as  the 
barons  had  failed  to  keep  their  part  of  the  Provisions  he 
should  not  keep  his. 

Earl  Sirnon  almost  alone  remained  unshaken.  But  his 
growing  influence  was  seen  in  the  appointment  of  his 
supporter,  Hugh  Despenser,  as  Justiciar  in  Bigod's  place, 
while  his  strength  was  doubled  by  the  accession  of  the 
King's  son  Edward  to  his  side.  In  the  moment  of  the 
revolution  Edward  had  vehemently  supported  the  party  of 
the  foreigners.  But  he  had  sworn  to  observe  the  Provisions, 
and  the  fidelity  to  his  pledge  which  remained  throughout 
his  life  the  chief  note  of  his  temper  at  once  showed  itself. 
Like  Simon  he  protested  against  the  faithlessness  of  the 
barons  in  the  carrying  out  of  their  reforms,  and  it  was  his 
strenuous  support  of  the  petition  of  the  knighthood  that 
brought  about  the  additional  Provisions  of  1259.  He  had 
been  brought  up  with  Earl  Simon's  sons,  and  with  the  Earl 


The 

Counter 
Revolu- 
tion. 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


295 


1232 
1272. 


himself  his  relations  remained  friendly  even  at  the  later  CHAP.  Ill 
time  of  their  fatal  hostilities.  But  as  yet  he  seems  to  have  ^he 
had  no  distrust  of  Simon's  purposes  or  policy.  His  Bwar.s 
adhesion  to  the  Earl  recalled  Henry  from  France  ;  and  the 
King  was  at  once  joined  by  Gloucester  in  London  while 
Edward  and  Simon  remained  without  the  walls.  But  the 
love  of  father  and  son  proved  too  strong  to  bear  political 
severance,  and  Edward's  reconciliation  foiled  the  Earl's 
plans.  He  withdrew  to  the  Welsh  border,  where  fresh 
troubles  were  breaking  out,  while  Henry  prepared  to  deal 
his  final  blow  at  the  government  which,  tottering  as  it  was, 
still  held  him  in  check.  Rome  had  resented  the  measures 
which  had  put  an  end  to  her  extortions,  and  it  was  to 
Rome  that  Henry  looked  for  a  formal  absolution  from  his 
oath  to  observe  the  Provisions.  In  June  1261  he  pro- 
duced a  Bull  annulling  the  Provisions  and  freeing  him 
from  his  oath  in  a  Parliament  at  "Winchester.  The  sudden- 
ness of  the  blow  forbade  open  protest  and  Henry  quickly 
followed  up  his  victory.  Hugh  Bigod,  who  had  surrendered 
the  Tower  and  Dover  in  the  spring,  surrendered  the  other 
castles  he  held  in  the  autumn.  Hugh  Despenser  was  de- 
posed from  the  Justiciarship  and  a  royalist,  Philip  Basset, 
appointed  in  his  place. 

The  news  of  this  counter-revolution  reunited  for  a  mo- 
ment the  barons.  Gloucester  joined  Earl  Simon  in  calling 
an  autumn  Parliament  at  St.  Alban's,  and  in  summon- 
ing to  it  three  knights  from  every  shire  south  of  Trent. 
But  the  union  was  a  brief  one.  Gloucester  consented  to 
refer  the  quarrel  with  the  King  to  arbitration  and  the 
Earl  of  Leicester  withdrew  in  August  to  France.  He  saw 
that  for  the  while  there  was  no  means  of  withstanding 
Henry,  even  in  his  open  defiance  of  the  Provisions.  Foreign 
soldiers  were  brought  into  the  land ;  the  King  won  back 
again  the  appointment  of  sheriffs.  For  eighteen  months  of 
this  new  rule  Simon  could  do  nothing  but  wait.  But  his 
long  absence  lulled  the  old  jealousies  against  him.  The 
confusion  of  the  realm  and  a  fresh  outbreak  of  troubles 


Simon's 
rising. 


296 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP..IH. 

The 

Bnrons' 
War. 

1232 
1273. 


Mise  of 
Amiens. 


in  Wales  renewed  the  disgust  at  Henry's  government, 
while  his  unswerving  faithfulness  to  the  Provisions  fixed 
the  eyes  of  all  Englishmen  upon  the  Earl  as  their  natural 
leader.  The  death  of  Gloucester  in  the  summer  of  1262 
removed  the  one  barrier  to  action ;  and  in  the  spring  of 
1263  Simon  landed  again  in  England  as  the  unquestioned 
head  of  the  baronial  party.  What  immediately  forced  him 
to  action  was  a  march  of  Edward  with  a  body  of  foreign 
troops  against  Llewelyn,  who  was  probably  by  this  time 
in  communication  if  not  in  actual  alliance  with  the  Earl. 
The  chief  opponents  of  Llewelyn  among  the  Marcher  Lords 
were  ardent  supporters  of  Henry's  misgovernment,  and 
when  a  common  hostility  drew  the  Prince  and  Earl 
together,  the  constitutional  position  of  Llewelyn  as  an 
English  noble  gave  formal  justification  for  co-operation  with 
him.  At  Whitsuntide  the  barons  met  Simon  at  Oxford 
and  finally  summoned  Henry  to  observe  the  Provisions. 
His  refusal  was  met  by  an  appeal  to  arms.  Throughout 
the  country  the  younger  nobles  flocked  to  Simon's 
standard,  and  the  young  Earl  of  Gloucester,  Gilbert  of 
Clare,  became  his  warmest  supporter.  His  rapid  move- 
ments foiled  all  opposition.  While  Henry  vainly  strove 
to  raise  money  and  men,  Simon  swept  the  Welsh  border, 
marched  through  Beading  on  Dover,  and  finally  appeared 
before  London. 

The  Earl's  triumph  was  complete.  Edward  after  a  brief 
attempt  at  resistance  was  forced  to  surrender  Windsor  arid 
disband  his  foreign  troops.  The  rising  of  London  in  the 
cause  of  the  barons  left  Henry  helpless.  But  at  the 
moment  of  triumph  the  Earl  saw  himself  anew  forsaken. 
The  bulk  of  the  nobles  again  drew  towards  the  King ;  only 
six  of  the  twelve  barons  who  had  formed  the  patriot  half 
of  the  committee  of  1258,  only  four  of  the  twelve  repre- 
sentatives of  the  community  at  that  date,  were  now  with 
the  Earl.  The  dread  too  of  civil  war  gave  strength  to  the 
cry  for  a  compromise,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  it  was 
agreed  that  the  strife  should  be  left  to  the  arbitration  of 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


the  French  King,  Lewis  the  Ninth.     But  saint  and  just  CHAP.  III.' 
ruler  as  he  was,  the  royal  power  was  in  the  conception  of       ^ 
Lewis  a  divine  thing,  which  no  human  power  could  limit     Bwar s 
or  fetter,  and  his  decision,  which  was  given  in  January     1232- 
1264,  annulled  the  whole  of  the  Provisions.     Only  the     1272' 
Charters  granted  before  the  Provisions  were  to  be  observed. 
The  appointment    and   removal    of  all   officers    of  state 
was  to  be  wholly  with  the  King,  and  he  was  suffered  to 
call   aliens   to   his  councils   if  he  would.      The  Mise  of 
Amiens  was  at  oiice  confirmed  by  the  Pope,  and  crushing 
blow  as  it  was,  the  barons  felt  themselves  bound  by  the 
award.     It  was  only  the  exclusion  of  aliens — a  point  which 
they  had  not  purposed  to  submit  to  arbitration — which 
they  refused  to  concede.     Luckily  Henry  was  as  inflexible 
on   this  point   as   on  the   rest,  and  the  mutual  distrust 
prevented  any  real  accommodation. 

But  Henry  had  to  reckon  on  more  than  the  baronage.  Battle  of 
Deserted  as  he  was  by  the  greater  nobles,  Simon  wras  far  Lewes. 
from  standing  alone.  Throughout  the  recent  struggle  the 
new  city  governments  of  the  craft-gilds,  which  were  known 
by  the  name  of  "  Communes,"  had  shown  an  enthusiastic 
devotion  to  his  cause.  The  Queen  was  stopped  in  her 
attempt  to  escape  from  the  Tower  by  an  angry  mob,  who 
drove  her  back  with  stones  and  foul  words.  When  Henry 
attempted  to  surprize  Leicester  in  his  quarters-  at  South- 
wark,  the  Londoners  burst  the  gates  which  had  been  locked 
by  the  richer  burghers  against  him,  and  rescued  him  by  a 
welcome  into  the  city.  The  clergy  and  the  universities 
went  in  sympathy  with  the  towns,  and  in  spite  of  the 
taunts  of  the  royalists,  who  accused  him  of  seeking  allies 
against  the  nobility  in  the  common  people,  the  popular 
enthusiasm  gave  a  strength  to  the  Earl  which  sustained 
him  even  in  this  darkest  hour  of  the  struggle.  He  at 
once  resolved  on  resistance.  The  French  award  had  luckily 
reserved  the  rights  of  Englishmen  to  the  liberties  they  had 
enjoyed  before  the  Provisions  of  Oxford,  and  it  was  easy  for 
Simon  to  prove  that  the  arbitrary  power  it  gave  to  the 


298 


HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Borons' 
War 

1232 
1272. 


CHAP.  III.  Crown  was  as  contrary  to  the  Charter  as  to  the  Provisions 
themselves.  London  was  the  first  to  reject  the  decision  ; 
in  March  1264  its  citizens  mustered  at  the  call  of  the 
town-bell  at  Saint  Paul's,  seized  the  royal  officials,  and 
plundered  the  royal  parks.  But  an  army  had  already 
mustered  in  great  force  at  the  King's  summons,  while 
Leicester  found  himself  deserted  by  the  bulk  of  the 
baronage.  Every  day  brought  news  of  ill.  A  detachment 
from  Scotland  joined  Henry's  forces.  The  younger  De 
Montfort  was  taken  prisoner.  Northampton  was  captured, 
the  King  raised  the  siege  of  Eochester,  and  a  rapid  march 
of  Earl  Simon's  only  saved  London  itself  from  a  surprize 
by  Edward.  But  betrayed  as  he  was,  the  Earl  remained 
firm  to  the  cause.  He  would  fight  to  the  end,  he  said,  even 
were  he  and  his  sons  left  to  fight  alone.  "With  an  army 
reinforced  by  15,000  Londoners,  he  marched  in  May  to 
the  relief  of  the  Cinque  Ports  which  were  now  threatened 
by  the  King.  Even  on  the  march  he  was  forsaken  by 
many  of  the  nobles  who  followed  him.  Halting  at  Fletch- 
ing  in  Sussex,  a  few  miles  from  Lewes,  where  the  royal 
army  was  encamped,  Earl  Simon  with  the  young  Earl  of 
Gloucester  offered  the  King  compensation  for  all  damage 
if  he  would  observe  the  Provisions.  Henry's  answer  was 
one  of  defiance,  and  though  numbers  were  against  him, 
the  Earl  resolved  on  battle.  His  skill  as  a  soldier  reversed 
the  advantages  of  the  ground ;  inarching  at  dawn  on  the 
14th  of  May  he  seized  the  heights  eastward  of  the  town 
and  moved  down  these  slopes  to  an  attack.  His  men  with 
white  crosses  on  back  and  breast  knelt  in  prayer  before  the 
battle  opened,  and  all  but  reached  the  town  before  their 
approach  was  perceived.  Edward  however  opened  the 
fight  by  a  furious  charge  which  broke  the  Londoners  on 
Leicester's  left.  In  the  bitterness  of  his  hatred  for  the 
insult  to  his  mother  he  pursued  them  for  four  miles, 
slaughtering  three  thousand  men.  But  he  returned  to  find 
the  battle  lost.  Crowded  in  the  narrow  space  between  the 
heights  and  the  river  Ouse,  a  space  broken  by  marshes  and 


ill.]  TEE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  299 

by  the  long  street  of  the  town,  the  royalist  centre  and  left  CHAP.  III. 
were  crushed  by  Earl  Simon.     The  Earl  of  Cornwall,  now        ^ 
King  of  the  Romans,  who,  as  the   mocking  song  of  the     Bwar8 
victors  ran,  "  makede  him  a  castel  of  a  mulne  post "  ("  he      1232- 
weened  that  the  mill-sails  were  mangonels  "  goes  on  the      1272' 
sarcastic  verse),  was  taken  prisoner,  and  Henry  himself 
captured.    Edward  cut  his  way  into  the  Priory  only  to  join 
in  his  father's  surrender. 

The  victory  of  Lewes  placed  Earl  Simon  at  the  head  of  Simon's 
the  state.  "  Xow  England  breathes  in  the  hope  of  liberty,"  ****  • 
sang  a  poet  of  the  time ;  "  the  English  were  despised  like 
dogs,  but  now  they  have  lifted  up  their  head  and  their 
foes  are  vanquished."  But  the  moderation  of  the  terms 
agreed  upon  in  the  Mise  of  Lewes,  a  convention  between  the 
King  and  his  captors,  shows  Simon's  sense  of  the  difficulties  , 
of  his  position.  The  question  of  the  Provisions  was  again 
to  be  submitted  to  arbitration ;  and  a  parliament  in  June, 
to  which  four  knights  were  summoned  from  every  county, 
placed  the  administration  till  chis  arbitration  was  complete 
in  the  hands  of  a  new  council  of  nine  to  be  nominated 
by  the  Earls  of  Leicester  and  Gloucester  and  the  patriotic 
Bishop  of  Chichester.  Responsibility  to  the  community 
was  provided  for  by  the  declaration  of  a  right  in  the  body 
of  barons  and  prelates  to  remove  either  of  the  Three 
Electors,  who  in  turn  could  displace  or  appoint  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Council.  Such  a  constitution  was  of  a  different 
order  from  the  cumbrous  and  oligarchical  committees  of 
1258.  But  it  had  little  time  to  work  in.  The  plans 
for  a  fresh  arbitration  broke  down.  Lewis  refused  to 
review  his  decision,  and  all  schemes  for  setting  fresh  judges 
between  the  King  and  his  people  were  defeated  by  a 
formal  condemnation  of  the  barons'  cause  issued  by  the 
Pope.  Triumphant  as  he  was  indeed  Earl  Simon's  diffi- 
culties thickened  every  day.  The  Queen  with  Archbishop 
Boniface  gathered  an  army,  in  France  for  an  invasion ; 
Ro^er  Mortimer  with  the  border  barons  was  still  in  arms 

O 

and  only  held  in  check  by  Llewelyn.     It  was  impossible 


300  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  to  make  binding  terms  with  an  imprisoned  King,  yet  to 
^  release  Henry  without  terms  was  to  renew  the  war.  The 
BWarS  imprisonment  too  gave  a  shock  to  public  feeling  which 
1232-  thinned  the  Earl's  ranks.  In  the  new  Parliament  which 
1272.  ke  cai}efi  at  t^  opening  of  1265  the  weakness  of  the 
patriotic  party  among  the  baronage  was  shown  in  the  fact 
that  only  twenty-three  earls  and  barons  could  be  found  to 
sit  beside  the  hundred  and  twenty  ecclesiastics. 
Summons  But  it  was  just  this  sense  of  his  weakness  which  prompted 
Commons  ^ne  ^ar^  *'°  au  ac^  that  nas  done  more  than  any  incident  of 
this  struggle  to  immortalize  his  name.  Had  the  strife  been 
simply  a  strife  for  power  between  the  king  and  the 
baronage  the  victory  of  either  would  have  been  equally 
fatal  in  its  results.  The  success  of  the  one  would  have 
•  doomed  England  to  a  royal  despotism,  that  of  the  other  to 
a  feudal  aristocracy.  Fortunately  for  our  freedom  the 
English  baronage  had  been  brought  too  low  by  the  policy 
of  the  kings  to  be  able  to  withstand  the  crown  single- 
handed.  From  the  first  moment  of  the  contest  it  had 
been  forced  to  make  its  cause  a  national  one.  The  sum- 
mons of  two  knights  from  each  county,  elecjted  in  its 
county  court,  to  a  Parliament  in  1254,  even  before  the 
opening  of  the  struggle,  was  a  recognition  of  the  political 
weight  of  the  country  gentry  which  was  confirmed  by 
the  summons  of  four  knights  from  every  county  to  the 
Parliament  assembled  after  the  battle  of  Lewes.  The 
Provisions  of  Oxford,  in  stipulating  for  attendance  and 
counsel  on  the  part  o/  twelve  delegates  of  the  "  com- 
monalty," gave  the  first  indication  of  a  yet  wider  appeal 
to  the  people  at  large.  But  it  was  the  weakness  of  his 
party  among  the  baronage  at  this  great  crisis  which  drove 
Earl  Simon  to  a  constitutional  change  of  mighty  issue  in 
our  history.  As  before,  he  summoned  two  knights  from 
every  county.  But  he  created  a  new  force  in  English 
politics  when  he  summoned  to  sit  beside  them  two 
citizens  from  every  borough.  The  attendance  of  delegates 
from  the  towns  had  long  been  .usual  in  the  county  courts 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  301 

when  any  matter  respecting  their  interests  was  in  question ;  CHAP.  III. 
but  it  was  the  writ  issued  by  Earl  Simon  that  first  sum-        ^^ 
moned   the  merchant  and  the    trader   to   sit  beside  the     Bwar8 
knight   of  the  shire,   the  baron,   and   the   bishop  in  the      1232- 
parliament  of  the  realm.  1272. 

It  is  only  this  great  event  however  which  enables  us  Simon's 
to  understand  the  large  and  prescient  nature  of  Earl  difficultly. 
Simon's  designs.  Hardly  a  few  months  had  passed  away 
since  the  victory  of  Lewes  when  the  burghers  took  their 
seats  at  Westminster,  yet  his  government  was  tottering 
to  its  fall.  We  know  little  of  the  Parliament's  acts.  It 
seems  to  have  chosen  Simon  as  Justiciar  and  to  have 
provided  for  Edward's  liberation,  though  he  was  still 
to  live  under  surveillance  at  Hereford  and  to  surrender 
his  earldom  of  Chester  to  Simon,  who  was  thus  able  to 
communicate  with  his  Welsh  allies.  The  Earl  met  the 
dangers  from  without  with  complete  success.  In  September 
1264  a  general  muster  of  the  national  forces  on  Barham 
Down  and  a  contrary  wind  put  an  end  to  the  projects  of 
invasion  entertained  by  the  mercenaries  whom  the  Queen 
had  collected  in  Flanders ;  the  threats  of  France  died  away 
into  negotiations ;  the  Papal  Legate  was  forbidden  to  cross 
the  Channel,  and  his  bulls  of  excommunication  were  flung 
into  the  sea.  But  the  difficulties  at  home  grew  more 
formidable  every  day.  The  restraint  upon  Henry  and 
Edward  jarred  against  the  national  feeling  of  loyalty,  and 
estranged  the  mass  of  Englishmen  who  always  side  with  the 
weak.  Small  as  the  patriotic  party  among  the  barons  had 
been  from  the  first,  it  grew  smaller  as  dissensions  broke  out 
over  the  spoils  of  victory.  The  Earl's  justice  and  resolve 
to  secure  the  public  peace  told  heavily  against  him.  John 
Giffard  left  him  because  he  refused  to  allow  him  to  exact 
ransom  from  a  prisoner,  contrary  to  the  agreement  made 
after  Lewes.  A  greater  danger  opened  ^vvhen  the  young 
Earl  of  Gloucester,  though  enriched  with  the  estates  of 
the  foreigners,  held  himself  aloof  from  the  Justiciar,  and 
resented  Leicester's  prohibition  of  a  tournament,  his 


302  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

UHAP.  III.   naming    the   wardens  of  the   royal  castles  by   his   own 
^       authority,   his  holding  Edward's  fortresses  on  the  Welsh 
BWar 8     marches  by  his  own  garrisons. 

1232          Gloucester's    later    conduct    proves    the    wisdom    of 

1272.     Leicester's  precautions.     In  the  spring  Parliament  of  1265 

Edward   }ie  openly  charged  the  Earl  with  violating  the   Mise   of 

Gloucester  Lewes,  w^n  tyranny,  and  with  aiming  at  the  crown. 
Before  its  close  he  withdrew  to  his  own  lands  in  the  west 
and  secretly  allied  himself  with  Eoger  Mortimer  and  the 
Marcher  barons.  Earl  Simon  soon  followed  him  to  the 
west,  taking  with  him  the  King  and  Edward.  He  moved 
along  the  Severn,  securing  its  towns,  advanced  westward 
to  Hereford,  and  was  marching  at  the  end  of  June  along  bad 
roads  into  the  heart  of  South  Wales  to  attack  the  fortresses 
of  Earl  Gilbert  in  Glamorgan  when  Edward  suddenly  made 
his  escape  from  Hereford  and  joined  Gloucester  at  Ludlow. 
The  moment  had  been  skilfully  chosen,  and  Edward 
showed  a  rare  ability  in  the  movements  by  which  he  took 
advantage  of  the  Earl's  position.  Moving  rapidly  along 
the  Severn  he  seized  Gloucester  and  the  bridges  across 
the  river,  destroyed  the  ships  by  which  Leicester  strove 
to  escape  across  the  Channel  to  Bristol,  and  cut  him  off 
altogether  from  England.  By  this  movement  too  he  placed 
himself  between  the  Earl  and  his  son  Simon,  who  was 
advancing  from  the  east  to  his  father's  relief.  Turning 
rapidly  on  this  second  force  Edward  surprized  it  at  Kenil- 
worth  and  drove  it  with  heavy  loss  within  the  walls  of 
the  castle.  But  the  success  was  more  than  compensated 
by  the  opportunity  which  his  absence  gave  to  the  Earl  of 
breaking  the  line  of  the  Severn.  Taken  by  surprize  and 
isolated  as  he  was,  Simon  had  been  forced  to  seek  for  aid 
and  troops  in  an  avowed  alliance  with  Llewelyn,  and  it  was 
with  Welsh  reinforcements  that  he  turned  to  the  east. 
But  the  seizure  of  his  ships  and  of  the  bridges  of  the 
Severn  held  him  a  prisoner  in  Edward's  grasp,  and  a  fierce 
attack  drove  him  back,  with  broken  and  starving  forces, 
into  the  Welsh  hills.  In  utter  despair  he  struck  north- 


Ill  ]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  303 

ward  to  Hereford ;  but  the  absence  of  Edward  now  enabled  CHAP,  ill 
him  on  the  2nd  of  August  to  throw  his  troops  iii  boats        The 
across   the    Severn    below    Worcester.      The  news  drew     Bw™8 
Edward  quickly  back  in  a  fruitless  counter-march  to  the      1232- 
river,  for  the  Earl  had  already  reached  Evesham  by  a  long      1?72 
night  march  on  the  morning  of  the  4th,  while  his  son,  re- 
lieved in  turn  by  Edward's  counter-inarch,  had  pushed  in 
the  same  night  to  the  little  town  of  Alcester.     The  two 
armies   were  now  but  some  ten  miles   apart,   and   their 
junction  seemed  secured.     But  both  were  spent  with  long 
marching,  and   while  the    Earl,   listening    reluctantly  to 
the  request  of  the  King  who  accompanied  him,  halted  at 
Evesham  for  mass  and  dinner,  the  army  of  the  younger 
Simon  halted  for  the  same  purpose  at  Alcester. 

"  Those  two  dinners  doleful  were,  alas !  "  sings  Robert  of     Battle 

Gloucester ;  for  through  the  same  memorable  night  Edward   „    °f 

.       ,      ,    „  Evesham. 

was  hurrying  back  from  the  Severn  by  country  cross-lanes 

to  seize  the  fatal  gap  that  lay  between  them.  As  morning 
broke  his  army  lay  across  the  road  that  led  northward 
from  Evesham  to  Alcester.  Evesham  lies  in  a  loop  of 
the  river  Avon  where  it  bends  to  the-  south;  and  a 
height  on  which  Edward  ranged  his  troops  closed  the  one 
outlet  from  it  save  across  the  river.  But  a  force  had  been 
thrown  over  the  river  under  Mortimer  to  seize  the  bridges, 
and  all  retreat  was  thus  finally  cut  off.  The  approach 
of  Edward's  army  called  Simon  to  the  front,  and  for  the 
moment  he  took  it  for  his  son's.  Though  the  hope  soon 
died  away  a  touch  of  soldierly  pride  moved  him  as  he  re- 
cognized in  the  orderly  advance  of  his  enemies  a  proof  of 
his  own  training.  "  By  the  arm  of  St.  James,"  he  cried, 
"  they  come  on  in  wise  fashion,  but  it  was  from  me  that 
they  learnt  it."  A  glance  however  satisfied  him  of  the  hope- 
lessness of  a  struggle ;  it  was  impossible  for  a  handful  of 
horsemen  with  a  mob  of  half-armed  Welshmen  to  resist 
the  disciplined  knighthood  of  the  royal* army.  "Let  us 
commend  our  souls  to  God,"  Simon  said  to  the  little  group 
around  him,  "for  our  bodies  are  the  foe's."  He  bade 


304 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


BWa?S 

1232 
1372. 


The 

Royalist 
reaction. 


CHAP.  III.  Hugh  Despenser  and  the  rest  of  his  comrades  fly  from 
i^I  the  field.  "  If  he  died,"  was  the  noble  answer,  "  they  had 
no  will  to  live."  In  three  hours  the  butchery  was  over. 
The  Welsh  fled  at  the  first  onset  like  sheep,  and  \vere  cut 
ruthlessly  down  in  the  cornfields  and  gardens  where  they 
sought  refuge.  The  little  group  of  knights  around  Simon 
fought  desperately,  falling  one  by  one  till  the  Earl  was  left 
alone.  So  terrible  were  his  sword-strokes  that  he  had  all  but 
gained  the  hill  top  when  a  lance  thrust  brought  his  horse  to 
the  ground,  but  Simon  still  rejected  the  summons  to  yield 
till  a  blow  from  behind  felled  him  mortally  wounded  to 
the  ground.  Then  with  a  last  cry  of  "  It  is  God's  grace  " 
the  soul  of  the  great  patriot  passed  away. 

The  triumphant  blare  of  trumpets  which  welcomed  the 
rescued  King  into  Evesham,  "  his  men  weeping  for  joy," 
rang  out  in  bitter  contrast  to  the  mourning  of  the  realm. 
It  sounded  like  the  announcement  of  a  reign  of  terror. 
The  rights  and  laws  for  which  men  had  toiled  and  fought 
so  long  seemed  to  have  been  swept  away  in  an  hour. 
Every  town  which  had  supported  Earl  Simon  was  held  to 
be  at  the  King's  mercy,  its  franchises  to  be  forfeited.  The 
Charter  of  Lynn  was  annulled  ;  London  was  marked  out 
as  the  special  object  of  Henry's  vengeance,  and  the  farms 
and  merchandize  of  its  citizens  were  seized  as  first-fruits 
of  its  plunder.  The  darkness  which  on  that  fatal  morning 
hid  their  books  from  the  monks  of  Evesham  as  they  sang 
in  choir  was  but  a  presage  of  the  gloom  which  fell  on  the 
religious  houses.  From  Ramsey,  from  Evesham,  from  St. 
Alban's  rose  the  same  cry  of  havoc  and  rapine.  But  the 
plunder  of  monk  and  burgess  was  little  to  the  vast  sentence 
of  confiscation  which  the  mere  fact  of  rebellion  was  held 
to  have  passed  on  all  the  adherents  of  Earl  Simon.  To 
"  disinherit  '*  these  of  their  lands  was  to  confiscate  half 
the  estates  of  the  landed  gentry  of  England ;  but  the 
hotter  royalists  declared  them  disinherited,  and  Henry  was 
quick  to  lavish  their  lands  away  on  favourites  ami 
The  very  chroniclers  of  their  party  recall  the 


foreigners. 


•III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  305 

pillage  with  shame.  But  all  thought  of  resistance  lay  hushed  CHAP.  III. 
in  a  general  terror.  Even  the  younger  Simon  "  saw  no  other        ^he 
.rede  "  than  to  release  his  prisoners.    His  army,  after  finish-     Bwar.s 
ing  its  meal,  was  again  on  its  march  to  join  the  Earl  when      1232- 
the  news  of  his  defeat  met  it,  heralded  by  a  strange  darkness      12^a< 
that,  rising  suddenly  in  the  north-west  and  following  as  it 
\vere  on  Edward's  track,  served  to  shroud  the  mutilations 
and  horrors  of  the  battle-field.     The  news  was  soon  fatally 
confirmed.     Simon  himself  could  see  from  afar  his  father's 
head  borne  off  on  a  spear-point  to  be  mocked  at  Wigmore. 
But  the  pursuit  streamed  away  southward  and  westward 
through  the  streets  of  Tewkesbury,  heaped  with  corpses  of 
the  panic-struck  Welshmen  whom  the  townsmen  slaughtered 
without  pity ;  and  there  was  no  attack  as  the  little  force 
fell  back  through  the  darkness  and  big  thunder-drops  in 
despair  upon  Kenilworth.     "  I  may  hang  up  my  axe,"  are 
the  bitter  words  which  a  poet  attributes  to  their  leader, 
"  for  feebly  have  I  gone ; "  and  once  within  the  castle  he 
gave  way  to  a  wild  sorrow,  day  after  day  tasting  neither 
meat  nor  drink. 

He  was  roused  into  action  again  by  news  of  the  Edward. 
shameful  indignities  which  the  Marcher-lords  had  offered 
to  the  body  of  the  great  Earl  before  whom  they  had 
trembled  so  long.  The  knights  around  him  broke  out  at 
the  tidings  in  a  passionate  burst  of  fury,  and  clamoured 
for  the  blood  of  Richard  of  Cornwall  and  his  son,  who 
were  prisoners  in  the  castle.  But  Simon  had  enough 
nobleness  left  to  interpose.  •  "  To  God  and  him  alone 
was  it  owing"  Richard  owned  afterwards  "that  I  was 
snatched  from  death."  The  captives  were  not  only  saved, 
but  set  free.  A  Parliament  had  been  called  at  Win- 
chester at  the  opening  of  September,  and  its  mere 
assembly  promised  an  end  to  the  reign  of  utter  lawless- 
ness. A  powerful  party,  too,  was  known  to  exist  in  the 
royal  camp  which,  hostile  as  it  had  shown  itself  to  Earl 
Simon,  shared  his  love  for  English  liberties,  and  the 
liberation  of  Richard  was  sure  to  aid  its  efforts.  At  the 


306 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1232- 
12/2. 


CHAP.  III.  head  of  this  party  stood  the  young  Earl  of  Gloucester, 
^  Gilbert  of  Clare,  to  whose  action  above  all  the  Earl's 
Barons'  overthrow  was  due.  And  with  Gilbert  stood  Edward  him- 
self. The  passion  for  law,  the  instinct  of  good  govern- 
ment, which  were  "to  make  his  reign  so  memorable  in  our 
history,  had  declared  themselves  from  the  first.  He  had 
sided  with  the  barons  at  the  outset  of  their  struggle  with 
Henry ;  he  had  striven  to  keep  his  father  true  to  the 
Provisions  of  Oxford.  It  was  only  when  the  figure  of 
Earl  Simon  seemed  to  tower  above  that  of  Henry  himself, 
when  the  Crown  seemed  falling  into  bondage,  that  Edward 
passed  to  the  royal  side ;  and  now  that  the  danger  which 
he  dreaded  was  over  he  returned  to  his  older  attitude.  In 
the  first  flush  of  victory,  while  the  doom  of  Simon  was  as 
yet  unknown,  Edward  had  stood  alone  in  desiring  his 
captivity  against  the  cry  of  the  Marcher-lords  for  his 
blood.  When  all  was  done  he  wept  over  the  corpse  of 
his  cousin  and  playfellow,  Henry  de  Montfort,  and  followed 
the  Earl's  body  to  the  tomb.  But  great  as  was  Edward's 
position  after  the  victory  of  Evesham,  his  moderate  counsels 
were  as  yet  of  little  avail.  His  efforts  in  fact  were  met 
by  those,  of  Henry's  second  son,  Edmund,  who  had  received 
the  lands  and  earldom  of  Earl  Simon,  and  whom  the  dread 
of  any  restoration  of  the  house  of  De  Montfort  set  at  the 
head  of  the  ultra-royalists.  Nor  was  any  hope  of  modera- 
tion to  be  found  in  the  Parliament  which  met  in  September 
1265.  It  met  in  the  usual  temper  of  a  restoration- 
Parliament  to  legalize  the  outrages  of  the  previous  month. 
The  prisoners  who  had  been  released  from  the  dungeons 
of  the  barons  poured  into  Winchester  to  add  fresh  violence 
to  the  demands  of  the  Marchers.  The  wives  of  the  captive 
loyalists  and  the  widows  of  the  slain  were  summoned  to 
give  fresh  impulse  to  the  reaction.  Their  place  of  meeting 
added  fuel  to  the  fiery  passions  of  the  throng,  for  Winchester 
was  fresh  from  its  pillage  by  the  younger  Simon  on  his  way 
to  Kenilworth,  and  its  stubborn  loyalty  must  have  been 
fanned  into  a  flame  by  the  losses  it  had  endured.  In  such 


XIX.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204-1291. 


307 


The 

Barons' 
War. 

1232 
1272. 


Miracles. 


an  assembly  no  voice  of  moderation  could  find  a  hearing.  CHAP.  III. 
The  four  bishops  who  favoured  the  national  cause,  the 
bishops  of  London  and  Lincoln,  of  Worcester  and 
Chichester,  were  excluded  from  it,  and  the  heads  of  the 
religious  houses  were  summoned  fpr  the  mere  purpose 
of  extortion.  Its  measures  were  but  a  confirmation  of 
the  violence  which  had  been  wrought.  All  grants  made 
during  the  King's  "  captivity  "  were  revoked.  The  house 
of  De  Montfort  was  banished  from  the  realm.  The  charter 
of  London  was  annulled.  The  adherents  of  Earl  Simon 
were  disinherited  and  seizin  of  their  lands  was  given  to 
the  King. 

Henry  at  once  appointed  commissioners  to  survey  and 
take  possession  of  his  spoil  while  he  moved  to  Windsor  to 
triumph  in  the  humiliation  of  London.  Its  mayor  and 
forty  of  its  chief  citizens  waited  in  the  castle  yard  only  to 
be  thrown  into  prison  in  spite  of  a  safe-conduct,  and  Henry 
entered  his  capital  in  triumph  as  into  an  enemy's  city. 
The  surrender  of  Dover  came  to  fill  his  cup  of  joy,  for 
Eicbard  and  Amaury  of  Montfort  had  sailed  with  the 
Earl's  treasure  to  enlist  foreign  mercenaries,  and  it  was  by 
this  port  that  tbeir  force  was  destined  to  land.  But  a  rising 
of  the  prisoners  detained  there  compelled  its  surrender  in 
October,  and  the  success  of  the  royalists  seemed  complete. 
In  reality  their  difficulties  were  but  beginning.  Their 
triumph  over  Earl  Simon  had  been  a  triumph  over  the 
religious  sentiment  of  the  time,  and  religion  avenged  itself 
in  its  own  way.  Everywhere  the  Earl's  death  was  looked 
upon  as  a  martyrdom  ;  and  monk  and  friar  united  in 
praying  for  the  souls  of  the  men  who  fell  at  Evesham  as 
for  soldiers  of  Christ.  It  was  soon  whispered  that  Heaven 
was  attesting  the  sanctity  of  De  Montfort  by  miracles  at 
his  tomb.  How  great  was  the  effect  of  this  belief  was 
seen  in  the  efforts  of  King  and  Pope  to  suppress  the 
miracles,  and  in  their  continuance  not  only  through  the 
reign  of  Edward  the  First  but  even  in  the  days  of  his 
successor.  But  its  immediate  result  was  a  sudden  revival 


308 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 
Barons' 


1232 
1272. 


CHAP.  III.  of  hope.  "  Sighs  are  changed  into  songs  of  praise,"  breaks 
out  a  monk  of  the  time,  "  and  the  greatness  of  our  former 
joy  has  come  to  life  again  !  "  Nor  was  it  in  miracles  alone 
that  the  "  faithful,"  as  they  proudly  styled  themselves, 
began  to  look  for  relief  "  from  the  oppression  of  the 
malignants."  A  monk  of  St.  Alban's  who  was  penning  a 
eulogy  of  Earl  Simon  in  the  midst  of  this  uproar  saw  the 
rise  of  a  new  spirit  of  resistance  in  the  streets  of  the 
little  town.  In  dread  of  war  it  was  guarded  and  strongly 
closed  with  bolts  and  bars,  and  refused  entrance  to  all 
strangers,  and  above  all  to  horsemen,  who  wished  to  pass 
through.  The  Constable  of  Hertford,  an  old  foe  of  the 
townsmen,  boasted  that  spite  of  bolts  and  bars  he  would 
enter  the  place  and  carry  off  four  of  the  best  villeins 
captive.  He  contrived  to  make  his  way  in;  but  as  he 
loitered  idly  a-bout  a  butcher  who  passed  by  heard  him 
ask  his  men  how  the  wind  stood.  The  butcher  guessed 
his  design  to  burn  the  town,  and  felled  him  to  the  ground. 
The  blow  roused  the  townsmen.  They  secured  the  Con- 
stable and  his  followers,  struck  off  their  heads,  and  fixed 
them  at  the  four  corners  of  the  borough. 

The  popular  reaction  gave  fresh  heart  to  the  younger 
Simon.  Quitting  Kenilworth,  he  joined  in  November  John 
D'Ey vill  and  Baldewin  Wake  in  the  Isle  of  Axholme  where 
the  Disinherited  were  gathering  in  arms.  So  fast  did  horse 
and  foot  flow  in  to  him  that  Edward  himself  hurried  into 
Lincolnshire  to  meet  this  new  danger.  He  saw  that  the 
old  strife  was  just  breaking  out  again.  The  garrison  of 
Kenilworth  scoured  the  country  ;  the  men  of  the  Cinque 
Ports,  putting  wives  and  children  on  board  their  barks, 
swept  the  Channel  and  harried  the  coasts  ;  while  Llewelyn, 
who  had  brought  about  the  dissolution  of  Parliament  by 
a  raid  upon  Chester,  butchered  the  forces  sent  against 
him  and  was  master  of  the  border.  The  one  thing 
needed  to  link  the  forces  of  resistance  together  was  a 
head,  and  such  •  a  head  the  appearance  of  Simon  at 
Axholme  seemed  to  promise.  But  Edward  was  resolute 


The 

Younger 
8imo"i. 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


309 


The 

Barons' 

War. 

1232- 

1272. 


in  his  plan  of  conciliation.  Arriving  before  the  camp  at  CHAP.  Ill 
the  close  of  1265,  he  at-  once  entered  into  negotiations  with 
his  cousin,  and  prevailed  on  him  to  quit  the  island  and 
appear  before  the  King.  liichard  of  Cornwall  welcomed 
Simon  at  the  court,  he  presented  him  to  Henry  as  the 
saviour  of  his  life,  and  on  his  promise  to  surrender  Kenil- 
worth  Henry  gave  him  the  kiss  of  peace.  In  spite  of 
the  opposition  of  Roger  Mortimer  and  the  Marcher-lords 
success  seemed  to  be  crowning  this  bold  stroke  of  the 
peace  party  when  the  Earl  of  Gloucester  interposed. 
Desirous  as  he  was  of  peace,  the  blood  of  Be  Montfort 
lay  between  him  and  the  Earl's  sous,  and  the  safety  of 
the  one  lay  in  the  ruin  of  the  other.  In  the  face  of  this 
danger  Earl  Gilbert  threw  his  weight  into  the  scale  of 
the  ultra-royalists,  and  peace  became  impossible.  The 
question  of  restitution  was  shelved  by  a  reference  to 
arbitrators;  and  Simon,  detained  in  spite  of  a  safe- 
conduct,  moved  in  Henry's  train  at  Christmas  to  witness 
the  surrender  of  Kenilworth  which  had  been  stipulated 
as  the  price  of  his  full  reconciliation  with  the  King.  But 
hot  blood  was  now  stirred  again  on  both  sides.  The 
garrison  replied  to  the  royal  summons  by  a  refusal  to 
surrender.  They  had  received  ward  of  the  castle,  they 
said,  not  from  Simon  but  from  the  Countess,  and  to  none 
but  her  would  they  give  it  up.  The  refusal  was  not  likely 
to  make  Simon's  position  an  easier  one.  On  his  return  to 
London  the  award  of  the  arbitrators  bound  him  to  quit 
the  realm  and  not  to  return  save  with  the  assent  of  King 
and  baronage  when  all  were  at  peace.  He  remained  for 
a  while  in  free  custody  at  London ;  but  warnings  that  he 
was  doomed  to  life-long  imprisonment  drove  him  to  flight, 
and  he  finally  sought  a  refuge  over  sea. 

His  escape  set  England  again  on  fire.  Llewelyn  wasted 
the  border ;  the  Cinque  Ports  held  the  sea ;  the  garrison 
of  Kenilworth  pushed  their  raids  as  far  as  Oxford ; 
Baldewin  Wake  with  a  band  of  the  Disinherited  threw 
himself  into  the  woods  and  harried  the  eastern  counties ; 

VOL.  I.— 21 


Ban  of 
Kenil- 
worth. 


310 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1232 
1272. 


CHAP.  III.  Sir  Adam  Gurdon,  a  knight  of  gigantic  size  and  renowned 
^  prowess,  wasted  with  a  smaller  party  the  shires  of  the 
BWar8'  south.  In  almost  every  county  bands  of  outlaws  were 
seeking  a  livelihood  in  rapine  and  devastation,  while  the 
royal  treasury  stood  empty  and  the  enormous  fine  imposed 
upon  London  had  been  swept  into  the  coffers  of  French 
usurers.  But  a  stronger  hand  than  the  King's  was  now 
at  the  head  of  affairs,  and  Edward  met  his  assailants  with 
untiring  energy.  King  Richard's  son,  Henry  of  Almaine, 
was  sent  with  a  large  force  to  the  north  ;  Mortimer  hurried 
to  hold  the  "Welsh  border ;  Edmund  was  despatched  to 
Warwick  to  hold  Kenilworth  in  check  ;  while  Edward 
himself  marched  at  the  opening  of  March  to  the  south- 
The  Berkshire  woods  wrere  soon  cleared,  and  at  Whitsun- 
tide Edward  succeeded  in  dispersing  Adam  Gurdon's  band 
and  in  capturing  its  renowned  leader  in  single  combat. 
The  last  blow  was  already  given  to  the  rising  in  the  north, 
where  Henry  of  Almaine  surprized  the  Disinherited  at 
Chesterfield  and  took  their  leader,  the  Earl  of  Derby,  in 
his  bed.  Though  Edmund  had  done  little  but  hold  the 
Kenilworth  knights  in  check,  the  submission  of  the  rest 
of  the  country  now  enabled  the  royal  army  to  besiege  it 
in  force.  But  the  King  was  penniless,  and  the  Parliament 
which  lie  called  to  replenish  his  treasury  in  August  showed 
the  resolve  of  the  nation  that  the  strife  should  cease.  They 
would  first  establish  peace,  if  peace  were  possible,  they 
said,  and  then  answer  the  King's  demand.  Twelve  com- 
missioners, with  Earl  Gilbert  at  their  head,  were  appointed 
on  Henry's  assent  to  arrange  terms  of  reconciliation. 
They  at  once  decided  that  none  should  be  utterly  disin- 
herited for  their  part  in  the  troubles,  but  that  liberty  of 
redemption  should  be  left  open  to  all.  Furious  at  the 
prospect  of  being  forced  to  disgorge  their  spoil,  Mortimer 
and  the  ultra-royalists  broke  out  in  mad  threats  of  violence, 
even  against  the  life  of  the  Papal  legate  who  had  pressed 
for  the  reconciliation.  But  the  power  of  the  ultra-royalists 
was  over.  The  general  resolve  was  not  to  be  shaken  by 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


The 

Barons 

War. 

1232 
1272. 


the  clamour  of  a  faction,  and  Mortimer's  rout  at  Brecknock  CHAP.  ill. 
by  Llewelyn,  the  one  defeat  that  chequered  the  tide  of 
success,  had  damaged  that  leader's  influence.  Backed  by 
Edward  and  Earl  Gilbert,  the  legate  met  their  opposition 
with  a  threat  of  excommunication,  and  Mortimer  withdrew 
sullenly  from  the  camp.  Fresh  trouble  in  the  country  and 
the  seizure  of  the  Isle  of  Ely  by  a  band  of  the  Disinherited 
quickened  the  labours  of  the  Twelve.  At  the  close  of 
September  they  pronounced  their  award,  restoring  their 
lands  to  all  who  made  submission  on  a  graduated  scale 
of  redemption,  promising  indemnity  for  all  wrongs  done 
during  the  troubles,  and  leaving  the  restoration  of  the 
house  of  De  Montfort  to  the  royal  will.  But  to  these 
provisions  were  added  an  emphatic  demand  that  "  the  King 
fully  keep  and  observe  those  liberties  of  the  Church, 
charters  of  liberties,  and  forest  charters,  which  he  is 
expressly  and  by  his  own  mouth  bound  to  preserve  and 
keep."  "Let  the  King,"  they  add,  "establish  on  a  lasting 
foundation  those  concessions  which  he  has  hitherto  made 
of  his  own  will  and  not  on  compulsion,  and  those  needful 
ordinances  which  have  been  devised  by  his  subjects  and 
by  his  own  good  pleasure." 

With  this  Award  the  struggle  came  to  an  end.  The 
garrison  of  Kenilworth  held  out  indeed  till  November,  and 
the  full  benefit  of  the  Ban  was  only  secured  when  Earl 
Gilbert  in  the  opening  of  the  following  year  suddenly 
appeared  in  arms  and  occupied  London.  But  the  Earl 
was  satisfied,  the  Disinherited  were  at  last  driven  from 
Ely,  and  Llewelyn  was  brought  to  submission  by  the 
appearance  of  an  army  at  Shrewsbury.  All  was  over  by 
the  close  of  1267.  His  father's  age  and  weakness,  his 
own  brilliant  military  successes,  left  Edward  practically 
in  possession  of  the  royal  power ;  and  his  influence  at  once 
made  itself  felt.  There  was  no  attempt  to  return  to  the 
misrule  of  Henry's  reign,  to  his  projects  of  continental 
aggrandizement  or  internal  despotism.  The  constitutional 
system  of  government  for  which  the  Barons  had 


Close  of 

the 
Struggle. 


fought 


312  HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.     [BOOK  in. 

CHAP.  III.   was  finally  adopted  by  the  Crown,  and  the  Parliament  of 

^        Maryborough  which  assembled  in  November  1267  renewed 

^a?8      tne  provisions  by  which  the  baronage  had  remedied  the  chief 

1232-     abuses  of  the  time  in  their  Provisions  of  Oxford  and  West- 

1272.     minster.  The  appointment  of  all  officers  of  state  indeed  was 

jealously  reserved  to  the  crown.   But  the  royal  expenditure 

was  brought  within  bounds.     Taxation  was  only  imposed 

with    the    assent    of    the    Great    Council.      So    utterly 

was  the   land  at  rest   that   Edward-  felt  himself  free   to 

take  the  cross  in  1268  and  to  join  the  Crusade  which 

was  being  undertaken  by  St.  Lewis  of  France.     He  reached 

Tunis  only  to  find  Lewis  dead  and  his  enterprize  a  failure, 

wintered  in  Sicily,  made  his  way  to  Acre  in  the  spring 

of  1271,  and  spent  more  than  a  year  in  exploits  which 

want   of  force   prevented    from  growing  into   a   serious 

campaign.     He  was  already  on  his  way  home  when  the 

death    of    Henry  the   Third  in    November  1272    called 

him  to  the  throne. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

EDWARD  THE  FIRST. 

1272—1307. 

IN  his  own  day  and  among  his  own  subjects  Edward  the  Edward's 
First  was  the  object  of  an  almost  boundless  admiration.  TemPer- 
He  was  in  the  truest  sense  a  national  King.  At  the 
moment  when  the  last  trace  of  foreign  conquest  passed 
away,  when  the  descendants  of  those  who  won  and  those 
who  lost  at  Senlac  blended  for  ever  into  an  English  people, 
England  saw  in  her  ruler  no  stranger  but  an  Englishman. 
The  national  tradition  returned  in  more  than  the  golden 
hair  or  the  English  name  which  linked  him  to  our  earlier 
Kings.  Edward's  very  temper  was  English  to  the  core. 
In  good  as  in  evil  he  stands  out  as  the  typical  repre- 
sentative of  the  race  he  ruled,  like  them  wilful  and 
imperious,  tenacious  of  his  rights,  indomitable  in  his 
pride,  dogged,  stubborn,  slow  of  apprehension,  narrow  in 
sympathy,  but  like  them,  too,  just  in  the  main,  unselfish, 
laborious,  conscientious,  haughtily  observant  of  truth  and 
self-respect,  temperate,  reverent  of  duty,  religious.  It  is 
this  oneness  with  the  character  of  his  people  which  parts 
the  temper  of  Edward  from  what  had  till  now  been  the 
temper  of  his  house.  He  inherited  indeed  from  the 
Angevins  their  fierce  and  passionate  wrath  ;  his  punish- 
ments, when  he  punished  in  anger,  were  without  pity ; 
and  a  priest  who  ventured  at  a  moment  of  storm  into 
his  presence  with  a  remonstrance  dropped  dead  from  sheer 
fright  at  his  feet.  But  his  nature  had  nothing  of  the  hard 


314 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 

the  First. 

1272- 
13O7. 


selfishness,  the  vindictive  obstinacy  which  had  so  long 
characterized  the  house  of  Anjou.  His  wrath  passed  as 
quickly  as  it  gathered ;  and  for  the  most  part  his  conduct 
was  that  of  an  impulsive,  generous  man,  trustful,  averse 
from  cruelty,  prone  to  forgive.  "  No  man  ever  asked  mercy 
of  me,"  he  said  in  his  old  age,  "and  was  refused."  The 
rough  soldierly  nobleness  of  his  nature  broke  out  in 
incidents  like  that  at  Falkirk  where  he  lay  on  the  bare 
ground  among  his  men,  or  in  his  refusal  during  a  Welsh 
campaign  to  drink  of  the  one  cask  of  wine  which  had  been 
saved  from  marauders.  "  It  is  I  who  have  brought  you 
into  this  strait,"  he  said  to  his  thirsty  fellow- soldiers,  "  and 
I  will  have  no  advantage  of  you  in  meat  or  drink." 
Beneath  the  stern  imperiousness  of  his  outer  bearing  lay 
in  fact  a  strange  tenderness  and  sensitiveness  to  affection. 
Every  subject  throughout  his  realm  was  drawn  closer  to 
the  King  who  wept  bitterly  at  the  news  of  his  father's 
death  though  it  gave  him  a  crown,  whose  fiercest  burst  of 
vengeance  was  called  out  by  an  insult  to  his  mother, 
whose  crosses  rose  as  memorials  of  his  love  and  sorrow  at 
every  spot  where  his  wife's  bier  rested,  "I  loved  her 
tenderly  in  her  lifetime,"  wrote  Edward  to  Eleanor's  friend, 
the  Abbot  of  Clugny ;  "  I  do  not  cease  to  love  her  now  she 
is  dead."  And  as  it  was  with  mother  and  wife,  so  it  was 
with  his  people  at  large.  All  the  self-concentrated  isolation 
of  the  foreign  Kings  disappeared  in  Edward.  He  was  the 
first  English  ruler  since  the  Conquest  who  loved  his  people 
with  a  personal  love  and  craved  for  their  love  back  again. 
To  his  trust  in  them  we  owe  our  Parliament,  to  his  care  for 
them  the  great  statutes  which  stand  in  the  forefront  of  our 
laws.  Even  in  his  struggles  with  her  England  understood 
a  temper  which  was  so  perfectly  her  own,  and  the  quarrels 
between  King  and  people  during  his  reign  are  quarrels 
where,  doggedly  as  they  fought,  neither  disputant  doubted 
for  a  moment  the  worth  or  affection  of  the  other.  Few 
scenes  in  our  history  are  more  touching  than  a  scene 
during  the  long  contest  over  the  Charter,  when  Edward 


III.] 


THE  CHAKTER.     1204—1291. 


315 


1272- 
13O7. 

Influence 

of 
Chivalry, 


stood  face  to  face  with  his  people  in  Westminster  Hall  CHAP.  IV. 
and  with  a  sudden  burst  of  tears  owned  himself  frankly  in     Edward 
the  wrong.  theFirst. 

But  it  was  just  this  sensitiveness,  this  openness  to  outer 
impressions  and  outer  influences,  that  led  to  the  strange 
contradictions  which  meet  us  in  Edward's  career.  His 
reign  was  a  time  in  which  a  foreign  influence  told  strongly 
on  our  manners,  our  literature,  our  national  spirit,  for  the 
sudden  rise  of  France  into  a  compact  and  organized 
monarchy  was  now  making  its  influence  dominant  in 
Western  Europe.  The  "  chivalry  "  so  familiar  to  us  in  the 
pages  of  Froissart,  that  picturesque  mimicry  of  high 
sentiment,  of  heroism,  love,  and  courtesy  before  which  all 
depth  and  reality  of  nobleness  disappeared  to  make  room 
for  the  coarsest  profligacy,  the  narrowest  caste-spirit,  and 
a  brutal  indifference  to  human  suffering,  was  specially  of 
French  creation.  There  was  a  nobleness  in  Edward's 
nature  from  which  the  baser  influences  of  this  chivalry 
fell  away.  His  life  was  pure,  his  piety,  save  when  it 
stooped  to  the  superstition  of  the  time,  manly  and  sin- 
cere, while  his  high  sense  of  duty  saved  him  from  the 
frivolous  self-indulgence  of  his  successors.  But  lie  was  far 
from  being  wholly  free  from  the  taint  of  his  age.  His 
passionate  desire  was  to  be  a  model  of  the  fashionable 
chivalry  of  his  day.  His  frame  was  that  of  a  born  soldier 
— tall,  deep-chested,  long  of  limb,  capable  alike  of  endurance 
or  action,  and  he  shared  to  the  full  his  people's  love  of 
venture  and  hard  fighting.  When  he  encountered  Adam 
Gurdon  after  Evesham  he  forced  him  single-handed  to  beg 
for  mercy.  At  the  opening  of  his  reign  he  saved  his  life 
by  sheer  fighting  in  a  tournament  at  Challon.  It  was  this 
love  of  adventure  which  lent  itself  to  the  frivolous  unreality 
of  the  new  chivalry.  His  fame  as  a  general  seemed  a  small 
thing  to  Edward  when  compared  with  his  fame  as  a 
knight.  At  his  "  Eound  Table  of  Kenilworth  "  a  hundred 
lords  and  ladies,  "clad  all  in  silk,"  renewed  the  faded 
glories  of  Arthur's  Court.  The  false  air  of  romance  which 


316 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272 
1307- 


Influen.ce 

of 
Legality, 


was  soon  to  turn  the  gravest  political  resolutions  into 
outbursts  of  sentimental  feeling  appeared  in  his  "Vow 
of  the  Swan,"  when  rising  at  the  royal  board  he  swore  on 
the  dish  before  him  to  avenge  on  Scotland  the  murder 
of  Comyn.'  Chivalry  exerted  on  him  a  yet  more  fatal 
influence  in  its  narrowing  of  his  sympathy  to  the  noble 
class  and  in  its  exclusion  of  the  peasant  and  the  crafts- 
man from  all  claim  to  pity.  "  Knight  without  reproach  " 
as  he  was,  he  looked  calmly  on  at  the  massacre  of  the 
burghers  of  Berwick,  and  saw  in  William  Wallace  nothing 
but  a  common  robber. 

The  French  notion  of  chivalry  had  hardly  more  power 
over  Edward's  mind  than  the  French  conception  of  king- 
ship, feudality,  and  law.  The  rise  of  a  lawyer  class  was 
everywhere  hardening  customary  into  written  rights, 
allegiance  into  subjection,  loose  ties  such  as  commendation 
into  a  definite  vassalage.  But  it  was  specially  through 
French  influence,  the  influence  of  St.  Lewis  and  his 
successors,  that  the  imperial  theories  of  the  Roman  Law 
were  brought  to  bear  upon  this  natural  tendency  of  the 
time.  When  the  "  sacred  majesty "  of  the  Caesars  was 
transferred  by  a  legal  fiction  to  the  royal  head  of  a  feudal 
baronage  every  constitutional  relation  was  changed.  The 
"  defiance "  by  which  a  vassal  renounced  service  to  his 
lord  became  treason,  his  after  resistance  "  sacrilege."  That 
Edward  could  appreciate  what  was  sound  and  noble  in  the 
legal  spirit  around  him  was  shown  in  his  reforms  of  our 
judicature  and  our  Parliament ;  but  there  was  something 
as  congenial  to  his  mind  in  its  definiteness,  its  rigidity,  its 
narrow  technicalities.  He  was  never  wilfully  unjust,  but 
he  was  too  often  captious  in  his  justice,  fond  of  legal 
chicanery,  prompt  to  take  advantage  of  the  letter  of  the 
law.  The  high  conception  of  royalty  which  he  borrowed 
from  St.  Lewis  united  with  this  legal  turn  of  mind  in  the 
worst  acts  of  his  reign.  Of  rights  or  liberties  unregistered 
in  charter  or  roll  Edward  would  know  nothing,  while  his 
own  good  sense  was  overpowered  by  the  majesty  of  his 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  317 

crown.     It  was  incredible  to  him  that  Scotland  should  CHAP.  IV. 
revolt  against  a  legal  bargain  which  made  her  national     Edward 
independence  conditional  on  the  terms  extorted  from  a   t116^™1' 
claimant  of  her  throne ;  nor  could  he  view  in  any  other     1307^ 
light  but  as  treason  the  resistance  of  his  own  baronage  to 
an  arbitrary  taxation  which  their  fathers  had  borne. 

It  is  in  the  anomalies  of  such  a  character  as  this,  in  its  H™ 
strange  mingling  of  justice  and  wrong-doing,  of  grandeur 
and  littleness,  that  we  must  look  for  any  fair  explanation 
of  much  that  has  since  been  bitterly  blamed  in  Edward's 
conduct  and  policy.  But  what  none  of  these  anomalies 
can  hide  from  us  is  the  height  of  moral  temper  which 
shows  itself  in  the  tenor  of  his  rule.  Edward  was 
every  inch  a  king ;  but  his  notion  of  kingship  was  a  lofty 
and  a  noble  one.  He  loved  power ;  he  believed  in  his  sove- 
reign rights  and  clung  to  them  with  a  stubborn  tenacity. 
But  his  main  end  in  clinging  to  them  was  the  welfare  of 
his  people.  Nothing  better  proves  the  self-command 
which  he  drew  from  the  purpose  he  set  before  him  than 
his  freedom  from  the  common  sin  of  great  rulers — the  lust 
of  military  glory.  He  was  the  first  of 'our  kings  since 
William  the  Conqueror  who  combined  military  genius 
with  political  capacity ;  but  of  the  warrior's  temper,  of  the 
temper  that  finds  delight  in  war,  he  had  little  or  none. 
His  freedom  from  it  was  the  more  remarkable  that  Edward 
was  a  great  soldier.  His  strategy  in  the  campaign  before 
Evesham  marked  him  as  a  consummate  general.  Earl 
Simon  was  forced  to  admire  the  skill  of  his  advance  on  the 
fatal  field,  and  the  operations  by  which  he  met  the  risings 
that  followed  it  were  a  model  of  rapidity  and  military 
grasp.  In  his  Welsh  campaigns  he  was  soon  to  show  a 
tenacity  and  force  of  will  which  wrested  victoiy  out  of  the 
midst  of  defeat.  He  could  head  a  furious  charge  of  horse 
as  at  Lewes,  or  organize  a  commissariat  which  enabled  him 
to  move  army  after  army  across  the  harried  Lowlands.  In 
his  old  age  he  was  quick  to  discover  the  value  of  the 
English  archery  and  to  employ  it  as  a  means  of  victoiy 


318 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Edward 
the  First. 

1272- 
1307. 


His 

Political 
Genius. 


at  Falkirk.  But  master  as  lie  was  of  the  art  of  war,  and 
forced  from  time  to  time  to  show  his  mastery  in  great 
campaigns,  in  no  single  instance  was  he  the  assailant. 
He  fought  only  when  he  was  forced  to  fight ;  and  when 
fighting  was  over  he  turned  back  quietly  to  the  work 
of  administration  and  the  making  of  laws. 

War  in  fact  was  with  Edward  simply  a  means  of  carrying 
out  the  ends  of  statesmanship,  and  it  was  in  the  character 
of  his  statesmanship  that  his  real  greatness  made  itself 
felt.  His  policy  was  an  English  policy ;  he  was  firm  to 
retain  what  was  left  of  the  French  dominion  of  his  race, 
but  he  abandoned  from  the  first  all  dreams  of  recovering 
the  wider  dominions  which  his  grandfather  had  lost.  His 
mind  was  not  on  that  side  of  the  Channel,  but  on  this. 
He  concentrated  his  energies  on  the  consolidation  and  good 
government  of  England  itself.  We  can  only  fairly  judge 
the  annexation  of  Wales  or  his  attempt  to  annex  Scotland 
if  we  look  on,  his  efforts  in  either  quarter  as  parts  of  the 
same  scheme  of  national  administration  to  which  we  owe 
his  final  establishment  of  our  judicature,  our  legislation, 
our  parliament.  •  The  character  of  his  action  was  no  doubt 
determined  in  great  part  by  the  general  mood  of  his  age, 
an  age  whose  special  task  and  aim  seemed  to  be  that  of 
'reducing  to  distinct  form  the  principles  which  had  sprung 
into  a  new  and  vigorous  life  during  the  age  which  pre- 
ceded it.  As  the  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century  had 
been  an  age  of  founders,  creators,  discoverers,  so  its  close 
was  an  age  of  lawyers,  of  rulers  such  as  St.  Lewis  of  France 
or  Alfonzo  the  Wise  of  Castille,  organizers,  administrators, 
framers  of  laws  and  institutions.  It  was  to  this  class  that 
Edward  himself  belonged.  He  had  little  of  creative 
genius,  of  political  originality,  but  he  possessed  in  a  high 
degree  the  passion  for  order  and  good  government,  the 
faculty  of  organization,  and  a  love  of  law  which  broke  out 
even  in  the  legal  chicanery  to  which  he  sometimes  stooped. 
In  the  judicial  reforms  to  which  so  much  of  his  attention 
was  directed  he  showed  himself,  if  not  an  "English 


III.j 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


319 


Justinian,"  at  any  rate  a  clear-sighted  and  judicious  man 
of  business,  developing,  reforming,  bringing  into  a  shape 
which  has  borne  the  test  of  five  centuries'  experience  the 
institutions  of  his  predecessors.  If  the  excellence  of  a 
statesman's  work  is  to  be  measured  by  its  duration  and  the 
faculty  it  has  shown  of  adapting  itself  to  the  growth  and 
developement  of  a  nation,  then  the  work  of  Edward  rises 
to  the  highest  standard  of  excellence.  Our  law  courts 
preserve  to  this  very  day  the  form  which  he  gave  them. 
Mighty  as  has  been  the  growth  of  our  Parliament,  it  has 
grown  on  the  lines  which  he  laid  down.  The  great  roll 
of  English  Statutes  reaches  back  in  unbroken  series  to  the 
Statutes  of  Edward.  The  routine  of  the  first  Henry,  the 
administrative  changes  which  had  been  imposed  on  the 
nation  by  the  clear  head  and  imperious  will  of  the  second, 
were  transformed  under  Edward  into  a  political  organization 
with  carefully-defined  limits,  directed  not  by  the  King's 
will  alone  but  by  the  political  impulse  of  the  people  at 
large.  His  social  legislation  was  based  in  the  same  fashion 
on  principles  which  had  already  been  brought  into  practical 
working  by  Henry  the  Second.  It  was  no  doubt  in  great 
measure  owing  to  this  practical  sense  of  its  financial  and' 
administrative  value  rather  than  to  any  foresight  of  its 
political  importance  that  we  owe  Edward's  organization  of 
our  Parliament.  But  if  the  institutions  which  we  com- 
monly associate  with  his  name  owe  their  origin  to  others, 
they  owe  their  form  and  their  perpetuity  to  him. 

The  King's  English  policy,  like  his  English  name,  was 
in  fact  the  sign  of  a  new  epoch.  England  was  made. 
The  long  period  of  national  formation  had  come  practically, 
to  an  end.  With  the  reign  of  Edward  begins  the  con- 
stitutional England  in  which  we  live.  It  is  not  that  any 
chasm  separates  our  history  before  it  from  our  history  after 
it  as  the  chasm  of  the  devolution  divides  the  history  of 
France,  for  we  have  traced  the  rudiments  of  our  constitu- 
tion to  the  first  moment  of  the  English  settlement  in 
Britain.  But  it  is  with  these  as  with  our  language.  The 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First 

1272 
13O7. 


Constitu- 
tional 
As2iect  <rf 
his  lieirjn. 


320 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV.  tongue  of  Alfred  is  the  very  tongue  we  speak,  but  in  spite 
Edward  °f  ^ts  identity  with  modern  English  it  has  to  be  learned 
theFim.  ijke  the  tongue  of  a  stranger.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
iio7~  English  of  Chaucer  is  almost  as  intelligible  as  our  own. 
In  the  first  the  historian  and  philologer  can  study  the  origin 
and  developement  of  our  national  speech,  in  the  last  a  school- 
boy can  enjoy  the  story  of  Troilus  and  Cressidaor  listen  to 
the  gay  chat  of  the  Canterbury  Pilgrims.  In  precisely  the 
same  way  a  knowledge  of  our  earliest  laws  is  indis- 
pensable for  the  right  understanding  of  lat^r  legislation,  its 
origin  and  its  developement,  while  the  principles  of  our 
Parliamentary  system  must  necessarily  be  studied  in  the 
Meetings  of  Wise  Men  before  the  Conquest  or  the  Great 
Council  of  barons  after  it.  But  the  Parliaments  which 
Edward  gathered  at  the  close  of  his  reign  are  not  merely 
illustrative  of  the  history  of  later  Parliaments,  they  are 
absolutely  identical  with  those  which  still  sit  at  St. 
Stephen's.  At  the  close  of  his  reign  King,  Lords,  Commons, 
the  Courts  of  Justice,  the  forms  of  public  administration, 
the  relations  of  Church  and  State,  all  local  divisions  and 
provincial  jurisdictions,  in  great  measure  the  framework  of 
society  itself,  have  taken  the  shape  which  they  essentially 
retain.  In  a  word  the  long  struggle  of  the  constitution  for 
actual  existence  has  come  to  an  end.  The  contests  which 
follow  are  not  contests  that  tell,  like  those  that  preceded 
them,  on  the  actual  fabric  of  our  institutions;  they  are 
simply  stages  in  the  rough  discipline  by  which  England 
has  learned  and  is  still  learning  how  best  to  use  and  how 
wisely  to  develope  the  latent  powers  of  its  national  life, 
how  to  adjust  the  balance  of  its  social  and  political  forces, 
how  to  adapt  its  constitutional  forms  to  the  varying 
conditions  of  the  time. 

The  news  of  his  father's  death  found  Edward  at  Capua 
in  the  opening  of  1273  ;  but  the  quiet  of  his  realm  under  a 
regency  of  which  Eoger  Mortimer  was  the  practical  head 
left  him  free  to  move  slowly  homewards.  Two  of  his 
acts  while  thus  journeying  through  Italy  show  that  his 


The 
Earlier 
Finance. 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  321 

mind  was  already  dwelling  on  the  state  of  English  finance  CHAP.  IV. 
and  of  English  law.  His  visit  to  the  Pope  at  Orvieto  was  Edward 
with  a  view  of  gaining  permission  to  levy  from  the  clergy  thej^rst- 
a  tenth  of  their  income  for  the  three  coming  years,  while  iao7~ 
he  drew  from  Bologna  its  most  eminent  jurist,  Francesco 
Accursi,  to  aid  in  the  task  of  legal  reform.  At  Paris  he 
did  homage  to  Philip  the  Third  for  his  French  possessions, 
and  then  turning  southward  he  devoted  a  year  to  the 
ordering  of  Gascony.  It  was  not  till  the  summer  of  1274 
that  the  King  reached  England.  But  he  had  already 
planned  the  work  he  had  to  do,  and  the  measures  which 
he  laid  before  the  Parliament  of  1275  were  signs  of  the 
spirit  in  which  he  was  to  set  about  it.  The  First  Statute 
of  Westminster  was  rather  a  code  than  a  statute.  It  con- 
tained no  less  than  fifty-one  clauses,  and  was  an  attempt  to 
summarize  a  number  of  previous  enactments  contained  in 
the  Great  Charter,  the  Provisions  of  Oxford,  and  the  Statute 
of  Marlborough,  as  well  as  to  embody  some  of  the  ad- 
ministrative measures  of  Henry  the  Second  and  his  son. 
But  a  more  pressing  need  than  that  of  a  codification  of 
the  law  was  the  need  of  a  reorganization  of  finance. 
While  the  necessities  of  the  Crown  were  growing  with 
the  widening  of  its  range  of  administrative  action,  the 
revenues  of  the  Crown  admitted  of  no  corresponding 
expansion.  In  the  earliest  times  of  our  history  the 
outgoings  of  the  Crown  were  as  small  as  its  income.  All 
local  expenses,  whether  for  justice  or  road-making  or 
fortress-building,  were  paid  by  local  funds;  and  the 
national  "  fyrd  "  served  at  its  own  cost  in  the  field.  The 
produce  of  a  king's  private  estates  with  the  provisions 
due  to  him  from  the  public  lands  scattered  over  each 
county,  whether  gathered  by  the  King  himself  as  he 
moved  over  his  realm,  or  as  in  later  days  fixed  at  a  stated 
rate  and  collected  by  his  sheriff,  were  sufficient  to  defray 
the  mere  expenses  of  the  Court.  The  Danish  wars  gave 
the  first  shock  to  this  simple  system.  To  raise  a  ransom 
which  freed  the  land  from  the  invader,  the  first  land- 


322 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


ilo7~ 


CHAP.  IV.  tax,  under  the  name  of  the  Danegeld,  was  laid  on  every  hide 
Edward  °f  ground  ;  and  to  this  national  taxation  the  Norman  kings 
theFirst.  a(j(je(i  the  feudal  burthens  of  the  new  military  estates 
created  by  the  Conquest,  reliefs  paid  on  inheritance,  profits 
of  marriages  and  wardship,  and  the  three  feudal  aids.  But 
foreign  warfare  soon  exhausted  these  means  of  revenue  ; 
the  barons  and  bishops  in  their  Great  Council  were  called 
on  at  each  emergency  for  a  grant  from  their  lands,  and  at 
each  grant  a  corresponding  demand  was  made  by  the  King 
as  a  landlord  on  the  towns,  as  lying  for  the  most  part 
in  the  royal  demesne.  The  cessation  of  Danegeld  under 
Henry  the  Second  and  his  levy  of  scutage  made  little 
change  in  the  general  incidence  of  taxation  :  it  still  fell 
wholly  on  the  land,  for  even  the  townsmen  paid  as  holders 
of  their  tenements.  But  a  new  principle  of  taxation  was 
disclosed  in  the  tithe  levied  for  a  Crusade  at  the  close  of 
Henry's  reign.  Land  was  no  longer  the  only  source  of 
wealth.  The  growth  of  national  prosperity,  of  trade  and 
commerce,  was  creating  a  mass  of  personal  property  which 
offered  irresistible  temptations  to  the  Angevin  financiers.  The 
old  revenue  from  landed  property  was  restricted  and  lessened 
by  usage  and  compositions.  Scutage  was  only  due  for  foreign 
campaigns  :  the  feudal  aids  only  on  rare  -and  stated  occa- 
sions: and  though  the  fines  from  the  shire-courts  grew  with 
the  growth  of  society  the  dues  from  the  public  lands  were 
fixed  and  incapable  of  developement.  But  no  usage  fettered 
the  Crown  in  dealing  with  personal  property,  and  its  growth 
in  value  promised  a  growing  revenue.  From  the  close  of 
Henry  the  Second's  reign  therefore  this  became  the  most 
common  form  of  taxation.  Grants  of  from  a  seventh  to  a 
thirtieth  of  moveables,  household-property,  and  stock  were 
demanded  ;  and  it  was  the  necessity  of  procuring  their 
assent  to  these  demands  which  enabled  the  baronage 
through  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Third  to  bring  a  financial 
pressure  to  bear  on  the  Crown. 

But  in  addition  to  these  two  forms  of  direct  taxation 


Indirect 


1  axation.  jrj^irect  taxation  also  was  coming  more  and  more  to  the 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  323 


front.     The  right  of  the  King  to  grant  licences  to  bring  CHAP.  IV, 
goods  into  or  to  trade  within  the  realm,  a  right  springing     Ech^ra 
from  the  need  for  his  protection  felt  by  the  strangers  who    the  First' 
came   there  for   purposes    of  traffic,   laid  the  foundation      1*307. 
of  our  taxes  on  imports.     Those  on  exports  were  only  a 
part  of  the  general  system  of   taxing   personal  property 
which  we  have  already  noticed.     How  tempting  this  source 
of  revenue  was  proving  we  see  from  a  provision  of  the 
Great  Charter   which  forbids  the  levy   of  more   than  the 
ancient   customs    on  merchants    entering  or   leaving   the 
realm.     Commerce  was  in  fact  growing  with  the  growing 
wealth   of  the  people.      The   crowd   of  civil   and  eccle- 
siastical  buildings   which   date   from   this   period   shows 
the   prosperity  of  the  country.       Christian    architecture 
reached  its  highest  beauty  in  the  opening  of  Edward's 
reign ;  a  reign  marked  by  the  completion  of  the  abbey 
church  of  Westminster  and  of  the  cathedral   church  at 
Salisbury.     An   English   noble  was   proud   to   be  styled 
"an  incomparable  builder,"  while  some  traces  of  the  art 
which   was   rising   into  life   across    the  Alps   flowed  in, 
it  may  be,  with  the  Italian  ecclesiastics  whom  the  Papacy 
forced    on    the    English    Church.      The    shrine   of    the 
Confessor   at   Westminster,  the  mosaic  pavement  beside 
the  altar   of  the   abbey,  the   paintings   on   the  walls  of 
its  chapter-house  remind  us  of   the  schools  which  were 
springing   up   under   Giotto   and  the   Pisans.      But  the 
wealth   which   this   art   progress   shows    drew    trade    to 
English   shores.     England   was   as   yet   simply   an   agri- 
cultural .  country.     Gascony  sent   her  wines ;   her  linens 
were  furnished  by  the  looms  of  Ghent  and  Liege  ;  Genoese 
vessels  brought  to  her  fairs  the  silks,  the  velvets,  the  glass 
of  Italy.     In  the  barks  of  the  Hanse  merchants  came  fur 
and  amber  from  the  Baltic,  herrings,  pitch,  timber,  and 
naval  stores  from  the  countries  of  the  north.     Spain  sent 
us  iron  and  war-horses.     Milan  sent  armour.     The  great 
Venetian  merchant-galleys  touched  the  southern  coasts  and 
left  in  our  ports  the  dates  of  Egypt,  the  figs  and  currants 


324 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV.  of  Greece,  the  silk  of  Sicily,  the  sugar  of  Cyprus  and 
Edward     Urete,  the  spices  of  the  Eastern  seas.     Capital  too  came 

theJFirst.  from  abroad.  The  bankers  of  Florence  and  Lucca  were 
\307.  busy  with  loans  to  the  court  or  vast  contracts  with  the 
wool-growers.  The  bankers  of  Cahors  had  already  dealt 
a  death-blow  to  the  usury  of  the  Jew.  Against  all  this 
England  had  few  exports  to  set.  The  lead  supplied  by  the 
mines  of  Derbyshire,  the  salt  of  the  Worcestershire  springs, 
the  iron  of  the  Weald,  were  almost  wholly  consumed 
at  home,  The  one  metal  export  of  any  worth  was  that  of 
tin  from  the  tin-mines  of  Cornwall.  But  the  production 
of  wool  was  fast  becoming  a  main  element  of  the  nation's 
wealth.  Flanders,  the  great  manufacturing  country  of  the 
time,  lay  fronting  our  eastern  coast ;  and  with  this  market 
close  at  hand  the  pastures  of  England  found  more  and 
more  profit  in  the  supply  of  wool.  The  Cistercian  order 
which  possessed  vast  ranges  of  moorland  in  Yorkshire 
became  famous  as  wool-growers ;  and  their  wool  had  been 
seized  for  Richard's  ransom.  The  Florentine  merchants 
were  developing  this  trade  by  their  immense  contracts  ;  we 
find  a  single  company  of  merchants  contracting  for  the 
purchase  of  the  Cistercian  wool  throughout  the  year.  It 
was  after  counsel  with  the  Italian  bankers  that  Edward 
devised  his  scheme  for  drawing  a  permanent  revenue  from 
this  source.  In  the  Parliament  of  1275  he  obtained  the 
grant  of  half  a  mark,  or  six  shillings  and  eightpence,  on 
each  sack  of  wool  exported ;  and  this  grant,  a  grant 
memorable  as  forming  the  first  legal  foundation  of  our 
customs-revenue,  at  once  relieved  the  necessities  of  the 
Crown. 
Wehh  The  grant  of  the  wool  tax  enabled  Edward  in  fact  to  deal 

Campaign.  with  the  great  Difficulty  of  his  realm.  The  troubles  of  the 
Barons'  war,  the  need  which  Earl  Simon  felt  of  Llewelyn's 
alliance  to  hold  in  check  the  Marcher-barons,  had  all  but 
shaken  off  from  Wales  the  last  traces  of  dependence. 
Even  at  the  close  of  the  war  the  threat  of  an  attack  from 
the  now  united  kingdom  only  forced  Llewelyn  to  submis- 


XIX.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


325 


1272 
1307 


sion  on  a  practical  acknowledgement  of  his  sovereignty.  CHAP.  IV 
Although  the  title  which  Llewelyn  ap  Jorweith  claimed  of  Edward 
Prince  of  North  Wales  was  recognized  by  the  English  the  First, 
court  in  the  earlier  days  of  Henry  the  Third,  it  was  Avith- 
drawn  after  1229  and  its  claimant  known  only  as  Prince 
of  Aberffraw.  But  the  loftier  title  of  Prince  of  Wales 
which  Llewelyn  ap  Gryffydd  assumed  in  1256  was  formally 
conceded  to  him  in  1267,  and  his  right  to  receive  homage 
from  the  other  nobles  of  his  principality  was  formally 
sanctioned.  Near  however  as  he  seemed  to  the  final 
realization  of  his  aims,  Llewelyn  was  still  a  vassal  of  the 
English  crown,  and  the  accession  of  Edward  to  the  throne 
was  at  once  followed  by  the  demand  of  homage.  But  the 
summons  was  fruitless ;  and  the  next  two  years  were 
wasted  in  as  fruitless  negotiation.  The  kingdom  however 
was  now  well  in  hand.  The  royal  treasury  was  filled  again, 
and  in  1277  Edward  marched  on  North  Wales.  The  fabric 
of  Welsh  greatness  fell  at  a  single  blow.  The  chieftains 
who  had  so  lately  sworn  fealty  to  Llewelyn  in  the 
southern  and  central  parts  of  the  country  deserted  him 
to  join  his  English  enemies  in  their  attack ;  an  English 
fleet  reduced  Anglesea ;  and  the  Prince  was  cooped  up  in 
his  mountain  fastnesses  and  forced  to  throw  himself  on 
Edward's  mercy.  With  characteristic  moderation  the 
conqueror  contented  himself  with  adding  to  the  English 
dominions  the  coast-district  as  far  as  Conway  and  with 
providing  that  the  title  of  Prince  of  Wales  should  cease 
at  Llewelyn's  death.  A  heavy  fine  which  he  had  incurred 
by  his  refusal  to  do  homage  was  remitted  ;  and  Eleanor,  a 
daughter  of  Earl  Simon  of  Montfort  whom  he  had  sought 
as  his  wife  but  who  had  been  arrested  on  her  way  to  him, 
was  wedded  to  the  Prince  at  Edward's  court. 

For  four  years  all  was  quiet  across  the  Welsh  Marches, 
and  Edward  was  able  again  to  turn  his  attention  to  the 
work  of  internal  reconstruction.  It  is  probably  to  this 
time,  certainly  to  the  earlier  years  of  his  reign,  that  we 
may  attribute  his  modification  of  our  judicial  system 

VOL.  L— 22 


Judicial 
Reforms. 


326  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  The  King's  Court  was  divided  into  three  distinct  tribunals, 
Edward  the  Court  of  Exchequer  which  took  cognizance  of  all 
theFim.  causes  jn  which  the  royal  revenue  was  concerned  ;  the 
ilofy  Court  of  Common  Pleas  for  suits  between  private  persons  ; 
and  the  King's  Bench,  which  had  jurisdiction  in  all  mat- 
ters that  affected  the  sovereign  as  well  as  in  "  pleas  of  the 
crown"  or  criminal  causes  expressly  reserved  for  his  deci- 
sion. Each  court  was  now  provided  with  a  distinct  staff 
of  judges.  Of  yet  greater  importance  than  this  change, 
which  was  in  effect  but  the  completion  of  a  process  of 
severance  that  had  long  been  going  on,  was  the  establish- 
ment of  an  equitable  jurisdiction  side  by  side  with  that  of 
the  common  law.  In  his  reform  of  1178  Henry  the  Second 
broke  up  the  older  King's  Court,  which  had  till  then  served 
as  the  final  Court  of  Appeal,  by  the  severance  of  the 
purely  legal  judges  who  had  been  gradually  added  to  it 
from  the  general  body  of  his  councillors.  The  judges  thus 
severed  from  the  Council  retained  the  name  and  the 
ordinary  jurisdiction  of  "the  King's  Court,"  but  the  mere 
fact  of  their  severance  changed  in  an  essential  way  the 
character  of  the  justice  they  dispensed.  The  King  in 
Council  wielded  a  power  which  was  not  only  judicial  but 
executive;  his  decisions  though  based  upon  custom  were 
not  fettered  by  it,  they  were  the  expressions  of  his  will, 
and  it  was  as  his  will  that  they  were  carried  out  by  officers 
of  the  Crown.  But  the  separate  bench  of  judges  had  no 
longer  this  unlimited  power  at  their  command.  They  had 
not  the  King's  right  as  representative  of  the  community  to 
make  the  law  for  the  redress  of  a  wrong.  They  professed 
simply  to  declare  what  the  existing  law  was,  even  if  it  was 
insufficient  for  the  full  purpose  of  redress.  The  authority 
of  their  decision  rested  mainly  on  their  adhesion  to  ancient 
custom  or  as  it  was  styled  the  "  common  law  "  which  had 
grown  up  in  the  past.  They  could  enforce  their  decisions 
only  by  directions  to  an  independent  officer,  the  sheriff,  and 
here  again  their  right  was  soon  rigidly  bounded  by  set 
form  and  custom.  These  bonds  in  fact  became  tighter 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  327 

every  day,  for  their  decisions  were  now  beginning  to  be  CHAP.  IV. 
reported,   and  the  cases  decided  by  one  bench  of  judges     Edward 
became  authorities  for  their  successors.     It  is  plain  that    the  First- 
such  a  state  of  things  has  the  utmost  value  in  many  ways,      1307" 
whether  in  creating  in  men's  minds  that  impersonal  notion 
of  a  sovereign  law  which  exercizes  its  imaginative  force 
on  human  action,  or  in  furnishing  by  the  accumulation  and 
sacredness  of  precedents  a  barrier  against  the  invasion  of 
arbitrary  power.     But  it  threw  a  terrible  obstacle  in  the 
way   of    the   actual   redress   of   wrong.      The   increasing 
complexity    of    human   action    as    civilization    advanced 
outstripped   the   efforts   of  the   law.     Sometimes  ancient 
custom   furnished   110    redress  for  a  wrong  which  sprang 
from  modern  circumstances.     Sometimes  the  very  pedantry 
and  inflexibility  of  the  law   itself  became   in   individual 
cases  the  highest  injustice. 

It  was  the  consciousness  of  this  that  made  men  cling  Equitable 

even  from  the  first  moment  of  the  independent  existence      ^1?.s~ 
.    ,.   .  1-1-11  -i      diction. 

of  these  courts  to  the  judicial  power  which  still  remained 

inherent  in  the  Crown  itself.  If  his  courts  fell  short  in 
any  matter  the  duty  of  the  King  to  do  justice  to  all  still 
remained,  and  it  was  this  obligation  which  was  recog- 
nized in  the  provision  of  Henry  the  Second  by  which  all 
cases  in  which  his  judges  failed  to  do  justice  were  reserved 
for  the  special  cognizance  of  the  royal  Council  itself.  To 
this  final  jurisdiction  of  the  King  in  Council  Edward  gave 
a  wide  developement.  His  assembly  of  the  ministers,  the 
higher  permanent  officials,  and  the  law  officers  of  the 
Crown  for  the  first  time  reserved  to  itself  in  its  judicial 
capacity  the  correction  of  all  breaches  of  the  law  which 
the  lower  courts  had  failed  to  repress,  whether  from  weak- 
ness, partiality,  or  corruption,  and  especially  of  those 
lawless  outbreaks  of  the  more  powerful  baronage  which 
defied  the  common  authority  of  the  judges.  Such  powers 
were  of  course  capable  of  terrible  abuse,  and  it  shows  what 
real  need  there  was  felt  to  be  for  their  exercize  that  though 
regarded  with  jealousy  by  Parliament  the  jurisdiction  of 


328 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Edw_ard 
the  First. 

1272- 
13O7. 


CHAP.  iv.  the  royal  Council  appears  to  have  been  steadily  put  into 
force  through  the  two  centuries  which  followed.  In  the 
reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh  it  took  legal  and  statutory 
form  in  the  shape  of  the  Court  of  Star  Chamber,  and  its 
powers  are  still  exercized  in  our  own  day  by  the  Judicial 
Committee  of  the  Privy  Council.  But  the  same  duty  of 
the  Crown  to  do  justice  where  its  courts  fell  short  of  jnvin" 

v  O  O 

due  redress  for  wrong  expressed  itself  in  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Chancellor  This  great  officer  of  State,  who  had 
perhaps  originally  acted  only  as  President  of  the  Council 
when  discharging  itsv  judicial  functions,  acquired  at  a  very 
early  date  an  independent  judicial  position  of  the  same 
nature.  It  is  by  remembering  this  origin  of  the  Court  of 
Chancery  that  we  understand  the  nature  of  the  powers  it 
gradually  acquired.  All  grievances  of  the  subject,  especially 
those  which  sprang  from  the  misconduct  of  government 
officials  or  of  powerful  oppressors,  fell  within  its  cognizance 
as  they  fell  within  that  of  the  Royal  Council,  and  to 
these  were  added  disputes  respecting  the  wardship  of 
infants,  dower,  rent-charges,  or  tithes.  •  Its  equitable  juris- 
diction sprang  from  the  defective  nature  and  the  technical 
and  unbending  rules  of  the  common  law.  As  the  Council 
had  given  redress  in  cases  where  law  became  injustice, 
so  the  Court  of  Chancery  interfered  without  regard  to  the 
rules  of  procedure  adopted  by  the  common  law  courts  on 
the  petition  of  a  party  for  whose  grievance  the  common  law 
provided  no  adequate  remedy.  An  analogous  extension  of 
his  powers  enabled  the  Chancellor  to  afford  relief  in  cases 
of  fraud,  accident,  or  abuse  of  trust,  and  this  'side  of  his 
jurisdiction  was  largely  extended  at  a  later  time  by  the 
results  oflegislation  on  the  tenure  of  land  by  ecclesiastical 
bodies.  The  separate  powers  of  the  Chancellor,  whatever 
was  the  original  date  at  which  they  were  first  exercized, 
seem  to  have  been  thoroughly  established  under  Edward 
the  First. 

What  reconciled  the  nation  to  the  exercize  of  powers  such 
as  these  by  the  Crown  and  its  council  was  the  need  which  was 


Law  and 

the 
Baronage. 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  329 

still  to  exist  for  centuries  of  an  effective  means  of  bringing  CHAP.  IV. 
the  baronage  within  the  reach  of  the  law.  Constitu-  Edward 
tionally  the  position  of  the  English  nobles  had  now  become 
established.  A  King  could  no  longer  make  laws  or  levy 
taxes  or  even  make  war  without  their  assent.  The  nation 
reposed  in  them  an  unwavering  trust,  for  they  were  no  longer 
the  brutal  foreigners  from  whose  violence  the  strong  hand 
of  a  Xorman  ruler  had  been  needed  to  protect  his  subjects ; 
they  were  as  English  as  the  peasant  or  the  trader.  They 
had  won  English  liberty  by  their  swords,  and  the  tradition 
of  their  order  bound  them  to  look  on  themselves  as  its 
natural  guardians.  The  close  of  the  Barons'  War  solved 
the  problem  which  had  GO  long  troubled  the  realm,  the 
problem  how  to  ensure  the  government  of  the  realm  in 
accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  Great  Charter,  by 
the  transfer  of  the  business  of  administration  into  the 
hands  of  a  standing  committee  of  the  greater  barons  and 
prelates,  acting  as  chief  officers  of  state  in  conjunction 
with  specially  appointed  ministers  of  the  Crown.  The 
body  thus  composed  was  known  as  the  Continual  Council ; 
and  the  quiet  government  of  the  kingdom  by  this  body  in 
the  long  interval  between  the  death  of  Henry  the  Third 
and  his  son's  return  shows  how  effective  this  rule  of  the 
nobles  was.  It  is  significant  of  the  new  relation  which 
they  were  to  strive  to  establish  between  themselves  and  the 
Crown  that  in  the  brief  which  announced  Edward's  acces- 
sion the  Council  asserted  that  the  new  monarch  mounted 
his  throne  "  by  the  will  of  the  peers."  But  while  the 
political  influence  of  the  baronage  as  a  leading  element  in 
the  whole*  nation  thus  steadily  mounted,  the  personal 
and  purely  feudal  power  of  each  individual  baron  on  his 
own  estates  as  steadily  fell.  The  hold  which  the  Crown 
gained  on  every  noble  family  by  its  rights  of  wardship  and 
marriage,  the  circuits  of  the  royal  judges,  the  ever  narrow- 
ing bounds  within  which  baronial  justice  saw  itself  circum- 
scribed, the  blow  dealt  by  scutage  at  their  military  power, 
the  prompt  intervention  of  the  Council  in  their  feuds, 


330 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272- 
13O7. 


Edward 

and  the 

Baronage. 


lowered  the  nobles  more  and  more  to  the  common  level  of 
their  fellow  subjects.  Much  yet  remained  to  be  done  ;  for 
within  the  general  body  of  the  baronage  there  existed  side 
by  side  with  the  nobles  whose  aims  were  purely  national 
nobles  who  saw  in  the  overthrow  of  the  royal  despotism 
simply  a  chance  of  setting  up  again  their  feudal  privileges ; 
and  different  as  the  English  baronage,  taken  as  a  whole,  was 
from  a  feudal  noblesse  like  that  of  Germany  or  France  there 
is  in  every  military  class  a  natural,  drift  towards  violence 
and  lawlessness.  Throughout  Edward's  reign  his  strong 
hand  was  needed  to  enforce  order  on  warring  nobles. 
Great  earls,  such  as  those  of  Gloucester  and  Hereford, 
carried  on  private  war ;  in  Shropshire  the  Earl  of  Arundel 
waged  his  feud  with  Fulk  Fitz  Warine.  To  the  lesser  and 
poorer  nobles  the  wealth  of  the  trader,  the  long  wain  of 
goods  as  it  passed  along  the  highway,  remained  a  tempting 
prey.  Once,  under  cover  of  a  mock  tournament  of  monks 
against  canons,  a  band  of  country  gentlemen  succeeded  in 
introducing  themselves  into  the  great  merchant  fair  at 
Boston  ;  at  nightfall  every  booth  was  on  fire,  the  merchants 
robbed  and  slaughtered,  and  the  booty  carried  off  to  ships 
which  lay  ready  at  the  quay.  Streams  of  gold  and  silver, 
ran  the  tale  of  popular  horror,  flowed  melted  down  the 
gutters  "to  the  sea  ;  "  all  the  money  in  England  could  hardly 
make  good  the  loss."  Even  at  the  close  of  Edward's  reign 
lawless  bands  of  "  trail-bastons,"  or  club-meii,  maintained 
themselves  by  general  outrage,  aided  the  country  nobles 
in  their  feuds,  and  wrested  money  and  goods  from  the  great 
tradesmen. 

The  King  was  strong  enough  to  face  and  imprison  the 
warring  earls,  to  hang  the  chiefs  of  the  Boston  marauders, 
and  to  suppress  the  outlaws  by  rigorous  commissions. 
But  the  repression  of  baronial  outrage  was  only  a  part 
of  Edward's  policy  in  relation  to  the  Baronage.  Here,  as 
elsewhere  he  had  to  carry  out  the  political  policy  of  his 
house,  a  policy  defined  by  the  great  measures  of  Henry 
the  Second,  his  institution  of  scutage,  his  general  assize  of 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


331 


1272- 
1307. 


arms,  his  extension  of  the  itinerant  judicature  of  the  royal  CHAP.  IV. 
judges.  Forced  by  the  first  to  an  exact  discharge  of  their  Edward 
military  duties  to  the  Crown,  set  by  the  second  in  the  the_Elrst- 
midst  of  a  people  trained  equally  with  the  nobles  to  arms, 
their  judicial  tyranny  curbed  and  subjected  to  the  King's 
justice  by  the  third,  the  barons  had  been  forced  from 
their  old  standpoint  of  an  isolated  class  to  the  new  and 
nobler  position  of  a  people's  leaders.  Edward  watched 
jealously  over  the  ground  which  the  Crown  had  gained. 
Immediately  after  his  landing  he  appointed  a  commission 
of  enquiry  into  the  judicial  franchises  then  existing,  and 
on  its  report  (of  which  the  existing  "  Hundred-Bolls."  are 
the  result)  itinerant  justices  were  sent  in  1278  to  discover 
by  what  right  these  franchises  were  held.  The  writs  of 
"  quo  warranto  "  were  roughly  met  here  and  there.  Earl 
\Varenne  bared  a  rusty  sword  and  flung  it  on  the  justices' 
table.  "  This,  sirs,"  he  said,  "  is  my  warrant.  By  the  sword 
our  fathers  won  their  lands  when  they  came  over  with  the 
Conqueror,  and  by  the  sword  we  will  keep  them."  But  the 
King  was  far  iiom  limiting  himself  to  the  mere  carrying 
out  of  the  plans  of  Henry  the  Second.  Henry  had  aimed 
simply  at  lowering  the  power  of  the  great  feudatories; 
Edward  aimed  rather  at  neutralizing  their  power  by  rais- 
ing the  whole  body  of  landowners  to  the  same  level.  We 
shall  see  -at  a  later  time  the  measures  which  were  the 
issues  of  this  policy,  but  in  the  very  opening  of  his  reign 
a  significant  step  pointed  to  the  King's  drift.  In  the 
summer  of  1278  a  royal  writ  ordered  all  freeholders  who 
held  lands  to  the  value  of  twenty  pounds  to  receive 
knighthood  at  the  King's  hands. 

Acts  as  significant  announced  Edward's  purpose  of 
carrying  out  another  side  of  Henry's  policy,  that  of  limiting 
in  the  same  way  the  independent  jurisdiction  of  the  Church. 
He  was  resolute  to  force  it  to  become  thoroughly  national 
by  bearing  its  due  part  of  the  common  national  burthens, 
and  to  break  its  growing  dependence  upon  Borne.  But  the 
ecclesiastical  body  was  jealous  of  its  position  as  a  power 


Edward- 
and  the 
Church. 


332 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1272 
1307. 


CHAP.  IV.  distinct  from  the  power  of  the  Crown,  and  Edward's  policy 
Edward  had  hardly  declared  itself  when  in  1279  Archbishop 
™at'  Peckham  obtained  a  canon  from  the  clergy  by  which 
copies  of  the  Great  Charter,  with  its  provisions  in  favour 
of  the  liberties  of  the  Church,  were  to  be  affixed  to  the 
doors  of  churches.  The  step  was  meant  as  a  defiant  pro- 
test against  all  interference,  and  it  was  promptly  forbidden. 
An  order  issued  by  the  Primate  to  the  clergy  to  declare  to 
their  flocks  the  sentences  of  excommunication  directed 
against  all  who  obtained  royal  writs  to  obstruct  suits  in  church 
courts,  or  who,  whether  royal  officers  or  no,  neglected  to  en- 
force iheir  sentences,  was  answered  in  a  yet  more  emphatic 
way.  By  falling  into  the  "  dead  hand  "  or  "  mortmain  "  of 
the  Church  land  ceased  to  render  its  feudal  services ;  and 
in  1279  the  Statute  "  de  Eeligiosis,"  or  as  it  is  commonly 
called  "of  Mortmain,"  forbade  any  further  alienation  of  land 
to  religious  bodies  in  such  wise  that  it  should  cease  to 
render  its  due  service  to  the  King.  The  restriction  was 
probably  no  beneficial  one  to  the  country  at  large,  for 
Churchmen  were  the  best  landlords,  and  it  was  soon  evaded 
by  the  ingenuity  of  the  clerical  lawyers;  but  it  marked  the 
growing  jealousy  of  any  attempt  to  set  aside  what  was 
national  from  serving  the  general  need  and  profit  of  the 
nation.  Its  immediate  effect  was  to  stir  the  clergy  to  a 
bitter  resentment.  But  Edward  remained  firm,  and  when 
the  bishops  proposed  to  restrict  the  royal  courts  from  deal- 
ing with  cases  of  patronage  or  causes  which  touched  the 
chattels  of  Churchmen  he  met  their  proposals  by  an  instant 
prohibition. 

The  resentment  of  the  clergy  had  soon  the  means  of 
showing  itself  during  a  new  struggle  with  Wales.  The 
persuasions  of  his  brother  David,  who  had  deserted  him  in 
the  previous  war  but  who  deemed  his  desertion  insufficiently 
rewarded  by  an  English  lordship,  roused  Llewelyn  to  a 
fresh  revolt.  A  prophecy  of  Merlin  was  said  to  promise 
that  when  English  money  became  round  a  Prince  of  Wales 
should  be  crowned  in  London ;  and  at  this  moment  a  new 


Conquest 
of  Wales. 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  333 

coinage  of  copper  money,  coupled  with  a  prohibition  to  CHAP.  IV. 
break  the  silver  penny  into  halves  and  quarters,  as  had  Edward 
been  commonly  done,  was  supposed  to  fulfil  the  prediction.  thej^5st' 
In  1282  Edward  marched  in  overpowering  strength  into  the  1307' 
heart  of  Wales.  But  Llewelyn  held  out  in  Snowdon  with 
the  stubbornness  of  despair,  and  the  rout  of  an  English  force 
which  had  crossed  into  Anglesea  prolonged  the  contest  into 
the  winter.  The  cost  of  the  war  fell  on  the  King's  treasury. 
Edward  had  called  for  but  one  general  grant  through  the 
past  eight  years  of  his  reign ;  but  he  was  now  forced  to 
appeal  to  his  people,  and  by  an  expedient  hitherto  without 
precedent  two  provincial  Councils  were  called  for  this  pur- 
pose. That  for  Southern  England  met  at  Northampton,  that 
for  Northern  at  York ;  and  clergy  and  laity  were  summoned, 
though  in  separate  session,  to  both.  Two  knights  came  from 
every  shire,  two  burgesses  from  every  borough,  while  the 
bishops  brought  their  archdeacons,  abbots,  and  the  proctors 
of  their  cathedral  clergy.  The  grant  of  the  laity  was  quick 
and  liberal.  But  both  at  York  and  Northampton  the  clergy 
showed  their  grudge  at  Edward's  measures  by  long  delays 
in  supplying  his  treasury.  Pinched  however  as  were  his 
resources  and  terrible  as  were  the  sufferings  of  his  army 
through  the  winter  Edward's  firmness  remained  unbroken  ; 
and  rejecting  all  suggestions  of  retreat  he  issued  orders  for 
the  formation  of  a  new  army  at  Caermarthen  to  complete 
the  circle  of  investment  round  Llewelyn.  But  the  war 
came  suddenly  to  an  end.  The  Prince  sallied  from  his 
mountain  hold  for  a  raid  upon  Radnorshire  and  fell 
in  a  petty  skirmish  on  the  banks  of  the  Wye.  With 
him  died  the  independence  of  his  race.  After  six  months 
of  flight  his  brother  David  was  made  prisoner;  and  a 
Parliament  summoned  at  Shrewsbury  in  the  autumn  of 
1283,  to  which  each  county  again  sent  its  two  knights  and 
twenty  boroughs  their  two  burgesses,  sentenced  him  to  a 
traitor's  death.  The  submission  of  the  lesser  chieftains 
soon  followed :  and  the  country  was  secured  by  the  building 
of  strong  castles  at  Convay  and  Caernarvon,  and  the 


334 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272- 
1307. 


Neio 
Legisla- 
tion. 


settlement  of  English  barons  on  the  confiscated  soil.  The 
Statute  of  Wales  which  Edward  promulgated  at  Khuddlan 
in  1284  proposed  to  introduce  English  law  and  the  English 
administration  of  justice  and  government  into  Wales. 
But  little  came  of  the  attempt ;  and  it  was  not  till  the 
time  of  Henry  the  Eighth  that  the  country  was  actually  in- 
corporated with  England  and  represented  in  the  English 
Parliament.  What  Edward  had  really  done  was  to  break 
the  Welsh  resistance.  The  policy  with  which  he  followed 
up  his  victory  (for  the  "  massacre  of  the  bards  "  is  a  mere- 
fable)  accomplished  its  end,  and  though  two  later  rebellions 
and  a  ceaseless  strife  of  the  natives  with  the  English  towns 
in  their  midst  showed  that  the  country  was  still  far  from 
being  reconciled  to  its  conquest,  it  ceased  to  be  any  serious 
danger  to  England  for  a  hundred  years. 

Erom  the  work  of  conquest  Edward  again  turned  to  the 
•vork  of  legislation.  In  the  midst  of  his  struggle  with 
Wales  he  had  shown  his  care  for  the  commercial  classes 
by  a  Statute  of  Merchants  in  1283,  which  provided  for 
the  registration  of  the  debts  of  traders  and  for  their 
recovery  by  distraint  of  the  debtor's  goods  and  the  im- 
prisonment of  his  person.  The  close  of  the  war  saw  two 
measures  of  even  greater  importance.  The  second  Statute 
of  Westminster  which  appeared  in  1285  is  a  code  of  the 
same  sort  as  the  first,  amending  the  Statutes  of  Mortmain, 
of  Merton,  and  of  Gloucester  as  well  as  the  laws  of  dower 
and  advowson,  remodelling  the  system  of  justices  of  assize, 
and  curbing  the  abuses  of  manorial  jurisdiction.  In  the 
same  year  appeared  the  greatest  of  Edward's  measures  for 
the  enforcement  of  public  order  The  Statute  of  Winchester 
revived  and  reorganized  the  old  institutions  of  national 
police  and  national  defence.  It  regulated  the  action  of 
the  hundred,  the  duty  of  watch  and  ward,  and  the  gather- 
ing of  the  fyrd  or  militia  of  the  realm  as  Henry  the 
Second  had  moulded  it  into  form  in  his  Assize  of  Arms. 
Every  man  was  bound  to  hold  himself  in  readiness,  duly 
armed,  for  the  King's  service  in  case  of  invasion  or  revolt, 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER     1204—1291.  335 

and  to  pursue  felons  when  hue  and  cry  were  made  after  CHAP.  IV. 
them.  Every  district  was  held  responsible  for  crimes  com-  Edward 
mitted  within  its  bounds ;  the  gates  of  each  town  were  the_^irst- 
to  be  shut  at  nightfall ;  and  all  strangers  were  required  1^07. 
to  give  an  account  of  themselves  to  the  magistrates 
of  any  borough  wrhich  they  entered.  By  a  provision 
which  illustrates  at  once  the  social  and  physical  condition 
of  the  country  at  the  time  all  brushwood  was  ordered  to 
be  destroyed  within  a  space  of  two  hundred  feet  on  either 
side  of  the  public  higlnvay  as  a  security  for  travellers  against 
sudden  attacks  from  robbers.  To  enforce  the  observance 
of  this  act  knights  were  appointed  in  every  shire  under 
the  name  of  Conservators  of  the  Peace,  a  name  which 
as  the  benefit  of  these  local  magistrates  was  more 
sensibly  felt  and  their  powers  were  more  largely  extended 
was  changed  into  that  which  they  still  retain  of  Justices 
of  the  Peace.  So  orderly  howrever  was  the  realm  that 
Edward  was  able  in  1286  to  pass  over  sea  to  his 
foreign  dominions,  and  to  spend  the  next  three  years  in 
reforming  their  government.  But  the  want  of  his  guiding 
hand  was  at  last  felt ;  and  the  Parliament  of  1289  refused 
a  new  tax  till  the  King  came  home  again. 

He  returned  to  find  the  Earls  of  Gloucester  and  Hereford  ''  Quia 
at  war,  and  his  judges  charged  with  violence  and  corrup-  <mPto 
tion.  The  two  Earls  were  brought  to  peace,  and  Earl 
Gilbert  allied  closely  to  the  royal  house  by  a  marriage 
with  the  King's  daughter  Johanna.  After  a  careful 
investigation  the  judicial  abuses  were  recognized  and 
amended.  Two  of  the  chief  justices  were  banished  from 
the  realm  and  their  colleagues  imprisoned  and  fined.  But 
these  administrative  measures  were  only  preludes  to  a 
great  legislative  act  which  appeared  in  1290.  The  Third 
Statute  of  Westminster,  or,  to  use  the  name  by  which  it  is 
more  commonly  known,  the  Statute  "  Quia  Emptores,"  is 
one  of  those  legislative  efforts  which  mark  the  progress  of 
a  wide  social  revolution  in  the  country  at  large.  The 
number  of  the  greater  barons  was  diminishing  every  day, 


336 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272 
13O7. 


The 

Crown 

and  the 

Jews. 


while  the  number  of  the  country  gentry  and  of  the  more 
substantial  yeomanry  was  increasing  with  the  increase  of 
the  national  wealth.  The  increase  showed  itself  in  a 
growing  desire  to  become  proprietors  pf  land.  Tenants  of 
the  barons  received  under-tenants  on  condition  of  their  ren- 
dering them  similar  services  to  those  which  they  them- 
selves rendered  to  their  lords  ;  and  the  baronage,  while 
duly  receiving  the  services  in  compensation  for  which 
they  had  originally  granted  their  lands  in  fee,  saw  with 
jealousy  the  feudal  profits  of  these  new  under-tenants,  the 
profits  of  wardships  or  of  reliefs  and  the  like,  in  a  word 
the  whole  increase  in  the  value  of  the  estate  consequent 
on  its  subdivision  and  higher  cultivation  passing  into  other 
hands  than  their  own.  The  purpose  of  the  statute  "  Quia 
Emptores  "  was  to  check  this  process  by  providing  that  in 
any  case  of  alienation  the  sub-tenant  should  henceforth 
hold,  not  of  the  tenant,  but  directly  of  the  superior  lord. 
But  its  result  was  to  promote  instead  of  hindering  the 
transfer  and  subdivision  of  land.  The  tenant  who  was 
compelled  before  the  passing  of  the  statute  to  retain  in 
any  case  so  much  of  the  estate  as  enabled  him  to  discharge 
his  feudal  services  to  the  over-lord  of  whom  he  held  it, 
was  now  enabled  by  a  process  analogous  to  the  modern 
sale  of  "  tenant-right,"  to  transfer  both  land  and  services 
to  new  holders.  However  small  the  estates  thus  created 
might  be,  the  bulk  were  held  directly  of  the  Crown  ;  and 
this  class  of  lesser  gentry  and  freeholders  grew  steadily 
from  this  time  in  numbers  and  importance. 

The  year  which  saw  "  Quia  Emptores"  saw  a  step  which 
remains  the  great  blot  upon  Edward's  reign.  The  work 
abroad  had  exhausted  the  royal  treasury,  and  he  bought  a 
grant  from  his  Parliament  by  listening  to  their  wishes  in 
the  matter  of  the  Jews.  Jewish  traders  had  followed 
William  the  Conqueror  from  Normandy,  and  had  been 
enabled  by  his  protection  to  establish  themselves  in 
separate  quarters  or  "  Jewries"  in  all  larger  English  towns. 
The  Jew  had  no  right  or  citizenship  in  the  land.  The 


ill.]  THE  CHAETER.     1204—1291.  337 

Jewry  in  which  he  lived  was  exempt  from  the  common  CHAP.  IV. 
law.     He  was  simply  the  King's  chattel,  and  his  life  and     Edward 
goods  were  at  the  King's  mercy.     But  he  was  too  valuable    the_ 
a  possession  to  be  lightly  thrown  away.     If  the  Jewish     1307. 
merchant    had    no    standing-ground    in   the    local   court 
the  king  enabled  him  to  sue  before  a  special  justiciar ;  his 
bonds  were  deposited  for  safety  in  a  chamber  of  the  royal 
palace    at   Westminster ;    he   was   protected   against    the 
popular  hatred  in  the  free  exercize  of   his  religion  and 
allowed   to   build   synagogues   and   to   manage    his   own 
ecclesiastical  affairs  by  means  of  a  chief  rabbi.    The  royal 
protection  was  dictated  by  no  spirit  of  tolerance  or  mercy. 
To  the  kings  the  Jew  was  a  mere  engine  of  finance.     The 
wealth  which  he  accumulated  was  wrung  from  him  when- 
ever the  crown  had  need,  and  torture  and  imprisonment 
were  resorted  to  when  milder  means  failed.     It  was  the 
gold  of  the  Jew  that  filled  the  royal  treasury  at  the  out- 
break of  war  or  of  revolt.     It  was  in  the  Hebrew  coffers 
that  the  foreign  kings  found  strength  to  hold  their  baronage 
at  bay. 

That  the  presence  of  the  Jew  was,  at  least  in  the  earlier  Pojmlar 
years  of  his  settlement,  beneficial  to  the  nation  at  large  Hatred  of 
there  can  be  little  doubt.  His  arrival  was  the  arrival  of 
a  capitalist ;  and  heavy  as  was  the  usury  he  necessarily 
exacted  in  the  general  insecurity  of  the  time  his  loans 
gave  an  impulse  to  industry.  The  century  which  followed 
the  Conquest  witnessed  an  outburst  of  architectural  energy 
which  covered  the  land  with  castles  and  cathedrals ;  but 
castle  and  cathedral  alike  owed  their  erection  to  the  loans  of 
the  Jew.  His  own  example  gave  a  new  vigour  to  domestic 
architecture.  The  buildings  which,  as  at  Lincoln  and 
Bury  St.  Edmund's,  still  retain  their  name  of  "Jews' 
Houses "  were  almost  the  first  houses  of  stone  which 
superseded  the  mere  hovels'  of  the  English  burghers.  Nor 
was  their  influence  simply  industrial.  Through  their 
connexion  with  the  Jewish  schools  in  Spain  and  the  East 
they  opened  a  way  for  the  revival  of  physical  sciences.  A 


338 


HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1272- 

1307. 


CHAP.  IV.  Jewish  medical  school  seems  to  have  existed  at  Oxford ; 
Edward  Roger  Bacon  himself  studied  under  English  rabbis.  But 
the  general  progress  of  civilization  now  drew  little  help 
from  the  Jew,  while  the  coming  of  the  Cahorsine  and 
Italian  bankers  drove  him  from  the  field  of  commercial 
finance.  He  fell  back  on  the  petty  usury  of  loans  to  the 
poor,  a  trade  necessarily  accompanied  with  much,  of 
extortion  and  which  roused  into  fiercer  life  the  religious 
hatred  against  their  race.  Wild  stories  floated  about 
of  children  carried  off  to  be  circumcized  or  crucified, 
and  a  Lincoln  boy  who  was  found  slain  in  a  Jewish 
house  was  canonized  by  popular  reverence  as  "  St.  Hugh." 
The  first  work  of  the  Friars  was  to  settle  in  the  Jewish 
quarters  and  attempt  their  conversion,  but  the  popular 
fury  rose  too  fast  for  these  gentler  means  of  reconciliation. 
When  the  Franciscans  saved  seventy  Jews  from  hanging 
by  their  prayer  to  Henry  the  Third  the  populace  angrily 
refused  the  brethren  alms. 

But  all  this  growing  hate  was  met  with  a  bold  defiance. 
The  picture  which  is  commonly  drawn  of  the  Jew  as 
timid,  silent,  crouching  under  oppression,  however  truly 
it  may  represent  the  general  position  of  his  race  through- 
out mediaeval  Europe,  is  far  from  being  borne  out  by 
historical  fact  on  this  side  the  Channel.  Tn  England  the 
attitude  of  the  Jew,  almost  to  the  very  end,  was  an 
attitude  of  proud  and  even  insolent  defiance.  He  knew 
that  the  royal  policy  exempted  him  from  the  common 
taxation,  the  common  justice,  the  common  obligations  of 
Englishmen.  Usurer,  extortioner  as  the  realm  held'  him 
to  be,  the  royal  justice  would  secure  him  the  repayment 
of  his  bonds.  A  royal  commission  visited  with  heavy 
penalties  any  outbreak  of  violence  against  the  King's 
"chattels."  The  Red  King  actually  forbade  the  conver- 
sion of  a  Jew  to  the  Christian  faith;  it  was  a  poor 
exchange,  he  said,  that  would  rid  him  of  a  valuable 
property  and  give  him  only  a  subject.  We  see  in  such  a 
case  as  that  of  Oxford  the  insolence  that  grew  out  of  this 


The 

Jewish 

Defiance. 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  339 

consciousness  of  the  royal  protection.  Here  as  elsewhere  CHAP.  IV. 
the  Jewry  was  a  town  within  a  town,  with  its  own  Edward 
language,  its  own  religion  and  law,  its  peculiar  commerce,  the  First- 
its  peculiar  dress.  No  city  bailiff  could  penetrate  into  the  If  off 
square  of  little  alleys  which  lay  behind  the  present  Town 
Hall ;.  the  Church  itself  was  powerless  to  prevent  a 
synagogue  from  rising  in  haughty  rivalry  over  against  the 
cloister  of  St.  Frideswide.  Prior  Philip  of  St.  Fridsswido 
complains  bitterly  of  a  certain  Hebrew  who  stood  at  his 
door  as  the  procession  of  tho  saint  passed  by,  mocking  at 
the  miracles  which  were  said  to  be  wrought  at  her  shrine. 
Halting  and  then  walking  firmly  on  hi?  feet,  showing  his 
hands  clenched  as  if  with  palsy  and  then  flinging  open  his 
fingers,  the  Jew  claimed  gifts  and  cbla.tions  from  the  crowd 
that  flocked  to  St.  Frideswide's  shriiie  on  the  ground  that 
such  recoveries  of  life  and  liml  «<yere  quite  as  real  as  any 
that  Frideswide  ever  wrought.  Sickness  and  death  in  the 
prior's  story  avenge  the  saint  on  her  blasphemer,  but  no 
earthly  power,  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  seems  to  have 
ventured  to  deal  with  him.  A  more  daring  act  of 
fanaticism  showed  the  temper  of  the  Jews  even  at  the 
close  of  Henry  the  Third's  reign.  As  the  usual  procession 
of  scholars  and  citizens  returned  from  St.  Frideswide's  on 
the  Ascension  Day  of  1268  a  Jew  suddenly  burst  from  a 
group  of  his  comrades  in  front  of  the  synagogue,  and 
wrenching  the  crucifix  from  its  bearer  trod  it  under  foot. 
But  even  in  presence  of  such  an  outrage  as  this  the  terror 
of  the  Crown  sheltered  the  Oxford  Jews  from  any  burst  of 
popular  vengeance.  The  sentence  of  the  King  condemned 
them  to  set  up  a  cross  of  marble  on  the  spot  where  the 
3rime  was  committed,  but  even  this  sentence  was  in  part 
remitted,  and  a  less  offensive  place  was  found  for  the  cross 
in  an  open  plot  by  Merton  College. 

Up  to  Edward's  day  indeed  the  royal  protection  had  Expulsion 
never   wavered.      Henry   the   Second   granted   the   Jews      jcl 
a  right  of  burial  outside   every  city  where  they  dwelt. 
Richard  punished  heavily  a  massacre  of  the  Jews  at  York, 


340 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAI-.  IV.  and  organized  a  mixed  court  of  Jews  and  Christians  for 
Edward  tne  registration  of  their  contracts.  John  suffered  none  to 

theFirst.  piunder  them  save  himself,  though  he  once  wrested  from 
ilo/r  them  a  sum  equal  to  a  year's  revenue  of  his  realm.  The 
troubles  of  the  next  reign  brought  in  a  harvest  greater 
than  even  the  royal  greed  could  reap ;  the  Jews  grew 
wealthy  enough  to  acquire  estates;  and  only  a  burst  of 
popular  feeling  prevented  a  legal  decision  which  would 
have  enabled  them  to  own  freeholds.  But  the  sack  of 
Jewry  after  Jewry  showed  the  popular  hatred  during  the 
Barons'  war,  and  at  its  close  fell  on  the  Jews  the  more 
terrible  persecution  of  the  law.  To  the  cry  against  usury 
and  the  religious  fanaticism  which  threatened  them  was  now 
added  the  jealousy  with  which  the  nation  that  had  grown 
•up  round  the  Charter  regarded  all  exceptional  jurisdictions 
or  exemptions  from  the  common  law  and  the  common 
burthens  of  the  realm.  As  Edward  looked  on  the  privileges 
of  the  Church  or  the  baronage,  so  his  people  looked  on 
the  privileges  of  the  Jews.  The  growing  weight  of  the 
Parliament  told  against  them.  Statute  after  statute 
hemmed  them  in.  They  were  forbidden  to  hold  real 
property,  to  employ  Christian  servants,  to  move  through 
the  streets  without  the  two  white  tablets  of  wool  on  their 
breasts  which  distinguished  their  race.  They  were  pro- 
hibited from  building  new  synagogues  or  eating  with 
Christians  cr  acting  as  physicians  to  them.  Their  trade, 
already  crippled  by  the  rivalry  of  the  bankers  of  Cahors, 
was  annihilated  by  a  royal  order  which  bade  them  renounce 
usury  under  pain  of  death.  At  last  persecution  could  do 
no  more,  and  Edward,  eager  at  the  moment  to  find  supplies 
for  his  treasury  and  himself  swayed  by  the  fanaticism  of 
his  subjects,  bought  the  grant  of  a  fifteenth  from  clergy 
and  laity  by  consenting  to  drive  the  Jews  from  his  realm. 
No  share  of  the  enormities  which  accompanied  this 
expulsion  can  fall  upon  the  King,  for  he  not  only  suffered 
the  fugitives  to  take  their  personal  wealth  with  them  but 
punished  with  the  halter  those  who  plundered  them  at 


Hi:  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  341 

sea.     But  the  expulsion  was  none  the  less  cruel.     Of  the  CHAP.  IV, 
sixteen   thousand    who   preferred   exile   to   apostasy  few     Ed^ri 
reached  the  shores  of  France.     Many  were  wrecked,  others    the  F"rst 
robbed  and  flung  overboard.     One  ship-master  turned  out     J|o7* 
a  crew  of  wealthy  merchants  on  to  a  sandbank  and  bade 
them  call  a  new  Moses  to  save  them  from  the  sea. 

From  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews,  as  from  his  nobler  Scotland. 
schemes  of  legal  and  administrative  reforms,  Edward  was 
suddenly  called  away  to  face  complex  questions  which 
awaited  him  in  the  North.  At  the  moment  which  we  have 
reached  the  kingdom  of  the  Scots  was  still  an  aggregate 
of  four  distinct  countries,  each  with  its  different  people, 
its  different  tongue,  its  different  history  The  old  Pictish 
kingdom  across  the  Firth  of  Forth,  the  original  Scot 
kingdom  in  Argyle,  the  district  of  Cumbria  or  Strathclyde, 
and  the  Lowlands  which  stretched  from  the  Firth  of  Forth 
to  the  English  border,  had  become  united  under  the  Kings 
of  the  Scot3  ;  Pictland  by  inheritance,  Cumbria  by  a  grant 
from  the  English  King  Eadmund,  the  Lowlands  by  conquest,- 
confirmed  as  English  tradition  alleged  by  a  grant  from  Cnut. 
The  shadowy  claim  of  dependence  on  the  English  Crown 
which  dated  from  the  days  when  a  Scotch  King  "com- 
mended "  himself  and  his  people  to  Alfred's  son  Eadward, 
a  claim  strengthened  by  the  grant  of  Cumbria  to  Malcolm 
as  a  "  fellow  worker  "  of  the  English  sovereign  "  by  sea  and 
land,"  may  have  been  made  more  real  through  this  last 
convention.  But  whatever  change  the  acquisition  of  the 
Lowlands  made  in  the  relation  of  the  Scot  Kings  to  the 
English  sovereigns,  it  certainly  affected  in  a  very  marked 
way  their  relation  both  to  England  and  to  their  own 
realm.  Its  first  result  was  the  fixing  of  the  royal  resi- 
dence in  their  new  southern  dominion  at  Edinburgh; 
and  the  English  civilization  which  surrounded  them  from 
the  moment  of  this  settlement  on  what  was  purely  English 
ground  changed  the  Scot  Kings  in  all  but  blood  into 
Englishmen.  The  marriage  of  King  Malcolm  with 
Margaret,  the  sister  of  Eadgar  ^Etheling,  not  only 

YOL.  I.— 23 


342 


HISTOKY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1272- 
13O7. 


CHAP.  IV.   hastened  this  change  but  opened   a  way  to  the  English 
Edward     crown.     Their  children  were  regarded  by  a   large  party 

the  First.  within  England  as  representatives  of  the  older  royal  race 
and  as  claimants  of  the  throne,  and  this  danger  grew  as 
William's  devastation  of  the  North  not  only  drove  fresh 
multitudes  of  Englishmen  to  settle  in  the  Lowlands  but 
filled  the  Scotch  court  with  English  nobles  who  fled 
thither  for  refuge.  So  formidable  indeed  became  the 
pretensions  of  the  Scot  Kings  that  they  forced  the  ablest 
of  our  Norman  sovereigns  into  a  complete  change  of 
policy.  The  Conqueror  and  William  the  Red  had  met 
the  threats  of  the  Scot  sovereigns  by  invasions  which 
ended  again  and  again  in  an  illusory  homage,  but  the 
marriage  of  Henry  the  First  with  the  Scottish  Matilda 
robbed  the  claims  of  the  Scottish  line  of  much  of  their  force 
while  it  enabled  him  to  draw  their  kings  into  far  closer 
relations  with  the  Norman  throne.  King  David  not  only 
abandoned  the  ambitious  dreams  of  his  predecessors  to 
place  himself  at  the  head  of  his  niece  Matilda's  party 
in  her  contest  with  Stephen,  but  as  Henry's  brother-in-law 
he  figured  as  the  first  noble  of  the  English  Court  and 
found  English  models  and  English  support  in  the  work 
of  organization  which  he  attempted  within  his  own 
dominions.  As  the  marriage  with  Margaret  had  changed 
Malcolm  from  a  Celtic  chieftain  into  an  English  King,  so 
that  of  Matilda  brought  about  the  conversion  of  David 
into  a  Norman  and  feudal  sovereign.  His  court  was 
filled  with  Norman  nobles  from  the  South,  such  as  the 
Balliols  and  Bruces  who  were  destined  to  play  so  great  a 
part  afterwards  but  who  now  for  the  first  time  obtained 
fiefs  in  the  Scottish  realm,  and  a  feudal  jurisprudence 
modelled  on  that  of  England  was  introduced  into  the 
Lowlands. 

A  fresh  connexion  between  Scotland  and  the  English 
sovereigns  began  with  the  grant  of  lordships  within 
England  itself  to  the  Scot  kings  or  their  sons.  The  Earldom 
of  Northumberland  was  held  by  David's  son  Henry,  that  of 


Scotch 

and 

English 
Crowns. 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  343 

Huntingdon  by  Henry  the  Lion.  Homage  was  sometimes  CHAP.  IV. 
rendered,  whether  for  these  lordships,  for  the  Lowlands,  or  Edward 
for  the  whole  Scottish  realm,  but  it  was  the  capture  of  theFirst 
William  the  Lion  during  the  revolt  of  the  English  baronage  llo/T 
which  first  suggested  to  the  ambition  of  Henry  the  Second 
the  project  of  a  closer  dependence  of  Scotland  on  the 
English  Crown.  To  gain  his  freedom  William  consented 
to  hold  his  kingdom  of  Henry  and  his  heirs.  The  pre- 
latas  and  lords  of  Scotland  did  homage  to  Hemy  as 
to  their  direct  lord,  and  a  right  of  appeal  in  all  Scotch 
causes  was  allowed  to  the  superior  court  of  the  English 
suzerain.  From  this  bondage  however  Scotland  was  freed 
by  the  prodigality  of  Eichard  who  allowed  her  to  buy  back 
the  freedom  she  had  forfeited.  Both  sides  fell  into  their 
old  position,  but  both  were  ceasing  gradually  to  remember 
the  distinctions  between  the  various  relations  in  which  the 
Scot  King  stood  for  his  different  provinces  to  the  English, 
Crown.  Scotland  had  come  to  be  thought  of  as  a  single 
country;  and  the  court  of  London  transferred  to  the  whole 
of  it  those  claims  of  direct  feudal  suzerainty  which  at  most 
applied  only  to  Strathclyde,  while  the  court  of  Edinburgh 
looked  on  the  English  Lowlands  as  holding  no  closer 
relation  to  England  than  the  Pictish  lands  beyond  the 
Forth.  Any  difficulties  wThich  arose  were  evaded  by  a  legal 
compromise.  The  Scot  Kings  repeatedly  did  homage  to 
the  English  sovereign.but  with  a  reservation  of  rights  which 
were  prudently  left  unspecified.  The  English  King  accepted 
the  homage  on  the  assumption  that  it  was  rendered  to  him 
as  overlord  of  the  Scottish  realm,  and  this  assumption  was 
neither  granted  nor  denied.  For  nearly  a  hundred  years  the 
relations  of  the  two  countries  were  thus  kept  peaceful  and 
friendly,  and  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Third  seemed 
destined  to  remove  even  the  necessity  of  protests  by  a 
closer  union  of  the  two  kingdoms.  Alexander  had  wedded 
his  only  daughter  to  the  .King  of  Norway,  and  after 
long  negotiation  the  Scotch  Parliament  proposed  the 
marriage  of  Margaret,  "  the  Maid  of  Norway,"  the  girl  who 


344  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK. 

CHAP.  IV.  was  the  only  issue  of  this  marriage  and  so  heiress  of  the 
Edward     kingdom,  with  the  son  of  Edward  the  First.      It  was  hovv- 
thejFirst.    ever  carefully  provided  in  the  marriage  treaty  which  was 
1307^      concluded  at  Brigham  in  1290  that  Scotland  should  re- 
main a  separate  and  free  kingdom,  and  that  its  laws  and 
customs  should  be  preserved  inviolate.     No  military  aid 
was  to  be  claimed  by  the  English  King,  no  Scotch  appeal 
to  be  carried    to    an   English    court.      But   this    project 
was  abruptly  frustrated  by  the  child's  death  during  her 
voyage  to  Scotland  in  the  following  October,  and  with  the 
rise  of  claimant  after  claimant  of  the  vacant  throne  Edward 
was  drawn  into  far  other  relations  to  the  Scottish  realm. 
The  Of  the   thirteen  pretenders  to  the  throne  of  Scotland 

Scotch     01)]y  three  could  be  regarded  as  serious  claimants.     By 
'  the  extinction  of  the  line  of  William  the  Lion  the  rio-ht 

O 

of  succession  passed  to  the  daughters  of  his  brother  David. 
The  claim  of  John  Balliol,  Lord  of  Galloway,  rested  on  his 
descnnt  from  the  elder  of  these ;  that  of  Robert  Bruce,  Lord 
of  Annan  dale,  on  his  descent  from  the  second ;  that  of  John 
Hastings,  Lord  of  Abergavenny,  on  his  descent  from  the 
third.  It  is  clear  that  at  this  crisis  nvery  one  in  Scotland 
or  out  of  it  recognized  some  sort  of  overlordship  in  Edward, 
for  the  Norwegian  King,  the  Primate  of  St.  Andrews,  and 
seven  of  the  Scotch  Earls  had  already  appealed  to  him 
before  Margaret's  death;  and  her  death  was  followed  by  the 
consent  both  of  the  claimants  and  the  Council  of  Regency 
to  refer  the  question  of  the  succession  to  his  decision  in  a 
Parliament  at  JSTorham.  But  the  overlordship  which  the 
Scots  acknowledged  was  something  far  less  direct  and 
definite  than  the  superiority  which  Edward  claimed  at  the 
opening  of  this  conference  in  May,  1291.  His  claim  was 
supported  by  excerpts  from  monastic  chronicles  and  by  the 
slow  advance  of  an  English  army  ;  while  the  Scotch  lords, 
taken  by  surprize,  found  little  help  in  the  delay  which  was 
granted  them.  At  the  opening  of  June  therefore  in  com- 
mon with  nine  of  the  claimants  they  formally  admitted 
Edward's  direct  suzerainty.  To  the  nobles  in  fact  the 


6-reenJ  History 


.,,  rfJ^rr^r-^>    '] 

f    SCOTLAND 

J  IT  C  C     <* 


IN    I29O 


Har 


per 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


345 


concession  must  have  •  seemed  a  small  one,  for  like  the  CHAP.  IV. 
principal  claimants  they  were  for  the  most  part  Norman  Edward 
in  blood,  with  estates  in  both  countries,  and  looking  for  the_^irst 
honours  and  pensions  from  the  English  Court.  From  the  Hof" 
Commons  who  were  gathered  with  the  nobles  at  Norham 
no  such  admission  of  Edward's  claims  could  be  extorted ; 
but  in  Scotland,  feudalized  as  it  had  been  by  David,  the 
Commons  were  as  yet  of  little  weight  and  their  opposition 
was  quietly  passed  by.  All  the  rights  of  a  feudal  suzerain 
were  at  once  assumed  by  the  English  King ;  he  entered  into 
the  possession  of  the  country  as  into  that  of  a  disputed  fief 
to  be  held  by  its  overlord  till  the  dispute  was  settled,  his 
peace  was  sworn  throughout  the  land,  its  castles  delivered 
into  his  charge,  while  its  bishops  and  nobles  swore  homage 
to  him  directly  as  their  lord  superior.  Scotland  was  thus 
reduced  to  the  subjection  which  she  had  experienced  under 
Henry  the  Secoc  d  ;  but  the  full  discussion  which  followed 
over  the  various  claims  to  the  throne  showed  that  while 
exacting  to  the  full  what  he  believed  to  be  his  right  Edward 
desired  to  do  justice  to  the  country  itself.  The  body  of 
commissioners  which  the  King  named  to  report  on  the 
claims  to  the  throne  were  mainly  Scotch.  A  proposal  for 
the  partition  of  the  realm  among  the  claimants  was  rejected 
as  contrary  to  Scotch  law.  On  the  report  of  the  commis- 
sioners after  a  twelvemonth's  investigation  in  favour  of 
Balliol  as  representative  of  the  elder  branch  at  the  close 
of  the  year  1292,  his  homage  was  accepted  for  the  whole 
kingdom  of  Scotland  with  a  full  acknowledgement  of  the  ' 
services  due  from  him  to  its  overlord.  The  castles  were  at 
once  delivered  to  the  new  monarch,  and  for  a  time  there 
was  peace. 

With  the  accession  of  Balliol  and  the  rendering  of  his 
homage  for  the  Scottish  realm  the  greatness  of  Edward 
reached  its  height.  He  was  lord  of  Britain  as  no  English 
King  had  been  before.  The  last  traces  of  Welsh  in- 
dependence were  trodden  under  foot.  The  shadowy  claims 
of  supremacy  over  Scotland  were  changed  into  a  direct 


Edward 

and 
Scotland, 


346  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  overlordship.  Across  the  one  sea  Edward  was  lord  of 
Edward  Guienne,  across  the  other  of  Ireland,  and  in  England  itself 
theFirst.  a  wise  and  generous  policy  had  knit  the  whole  nation 
1307"  round  his  throne.  Firmly  as  he  still  clung  to  pre- 
rogatives which  the  baronage  were  as  firm  not  to  own, 
the  main  struggle  for  the  Charter  was  over.  Justice  and 
good  government  were  secured.  The  personal  despotisrr 
which  John  had  striven  to  build  up,  the  imperial  autocracy 
which  had  haunted  the  imagination  of  Henry  the  Third, 
were  alike  set  aside.  The  rule  of  Edward,  vigorous  and 
effective  as  it  was,  was  a  rule  of  law,  and  of  law  enacted 
not  by  the  royal  will,  but  by  the  common  council  of  the 
realm.  Never  had  English  ruler  reached  a  greater  height 
of  power,  nor  was  there  any  sign  to  warn  the  King  of  the 
troubles  which  awaited  him.  France,  jealous  as  it  was  of 
his  greatness  and  covetous  of  his  Gascon  possessions,  he 
could  hold  at  bay.  Wales  was  growing  tranquil.  Scotland 
gave  few  signs  of  discontent  or  restlessness  in  the  first 
year  that  followed  the  homage  of  its  King.  Under  John 
Balliol  it  had  simply  fallen  back  into  the  position  of 
dependence  which  it  held  under  William  the  Lion ,  and 
Edward  had  no  purpose  of  pushing  further  his  rights  as 
suzerain  than  Henry  the  Second  had  done.  One  claim  of 
the  English  Crown  indeed  was  soon  a  subject  of  dispute 
between  the  lawyers  of  the  Scotch  and  of  the  English 
Council  boards.  Edward  would  have  granted  as  freely 
as  Balliol  himself  that  though  Scotland  was  a  dependent 
•  kingdom  it  was  far  from  being  an  ordinary  fief  of  the 
English  Crown.  By  feudal  custom  a  distinction  had 
always  been  held  to  exist  between  the  relations  of  a 
dependent  king  to  a  superior  lord  and  those  of  a  vassal 
noble  to  his  sovereign.  At  Balliol's  homage  indeed 
Edward  had  disclaimed  any  right  to  the  ordinary  feudal 
incidents  of  a  fief,  those  of  wardship  or  marriage,  and  in 
this  disclaimer  he  was  only  repeating  the  reservations 
of  the  marriage  treaty  of  Brigham.  There  were  other 
customs  of  the  Scotch  realm  as  incontestable  as  these, 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


347 


Even  after  the  treaty  of  Falaise  the  Scotch   King   had  CHAP.  IV. 
not  been  held  bound  to  attend  the  council  of  the  English     Edward 
baronage,  to  do   service   in  English  warfare,  or  to  con-    thej^rst- 
tribute  on  the  part  of  his  Scotch  realm  to  English  aids.      Ho?" 
If  no  express  acknowledgement  of  these  rights  had  been 
made  by  Edward,  for  some  time  after  his  acceptance  of 
Balliol's   homage   they    were  practically  observed.      The 
claim  of   independent  justice  was    more  doubtful,   as  it 
was  of  higher  import  than  these.     The  judicial  independ- 
ence  of    Scotland   had    been   expressly  reserved   in  the 
marriage  treaty.      It  was  certain  that  no  appeal  from  a 
Scotch  King's  court   to   that  of  his   overlord  had   been 
allowed  since  the  days  of  William  the  Lion.     But  in  the 
jurisprudence  of  the  feudal  lawyers  the  right  of  ultimate 
appeal  was  the  test  of  sovereignty,  and  Edward  regarded 
Balliol's  homage  as  having  placed  him  precisely  in  the 
position  of  William  the  Lion  and  subjected  his  decisions 
to  those  of  his  overlord.      He  was  resolute  therefore  to 
assert  the  supremacy  of  his  court  and  to  receive  Scotch 
appeals. 

Even  here  however  the  quarrel  seemed  likely  to  end 
only  in  legal  bickering.  Balliol  at  first  gave  way,  and  it 
was  not  till  1293  that  he  alleged  himself  forced  by  the 
resentment  both  of  his  Baronage  and  his  people  to  take 
up  an  attitude  of  resistance.  While  appearing  therefore 
formally  at  Westminster  he  refused  to  answer  an  appeal 
before  the  English  courts  save  by  advice  of  his  Council. 
But  real  as  the  resentment  of  his  barons  may  have  been, 
it  was  not  Scotland  which  really  spurred  Balliol  to  this 
defiance.  His  wounded  pride  had  made  him  the  tool 
of  a  power  beyond  the  s,ea.  The  keenness  with  which 
France  had  watched  every  step  of  Edward's  success  in  the 
north  sprang  not  merely  from  a  natural  jealousy  of  his 
greatness  but  from  its  bearing  on  a  great  object  of  French 
ambition.  One  fragment  of  Eleanor's  inheritance  still 
remained  to  her  descendants,  Guienne  and  Gascony,  the 
fair  lands  along  the  Garonne  and  the  territory  which 


The 
French 
Attack. 


348  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  stretched  south  of  that  river  to  the  Pyrenees.  It  was  this 
Edward  territory  that  now  tempted  the  greed  of  Philip  the  Fair, 

theFirst.  an(j  ^  was  jn  feeding  the  strife  between  England  and  the 
1307.  Scotch  King  that  Philip  saw  an  opening  for  winning  it. 
French  envoys  therefore  brought  promises  of  aid  to  the 
Scotch  Court ;  and  no  sooner  had  these  intrigues  moved 
Balliol  to  resent  the  claimc  of  his  overlord  than  Philip 
found  a  pretext  for  open  quarrel  with  Edward  in  the  frays 
which  went  constantly  on  in  the  Channel  between  the 
mariners  of  Normandy  and  those  of  the  Cinque  Ports. 
They  culminated  at  this  moment  in  a  great  sea-fight  which 
proved  fatal  to  eight  thousand  Frenchmen,  and  for  this 
Philip  haughtily  demanded  redress.  Edward  saw  at  once 
the  danger  of  his  position.  He  did  his  best  to  allay  the 
storm  by  promise  of  satisfaction  to  France,  atid  by  address- 
ing threats  of  punishment  to  the  English  seamen.  But 
Philip  still  clung  to  his  wrong,  while  the  national  passion 
which  was  to  prove  tor  a  hundred  years  to  come  strong 
enough  to  hold  down  the  royal  policy  of  peace  showed 
itself  in  a  characteristic  defiance  with  which  the  seamen 
of  the  Cinque  Ports  met  Edward's  menaces.  "  Be  the 
King's  Council  well  advised,"  ran  this  remonstrance,  "that 
if  wrong  or  grievance  be  done  them  in  any  fashion  against 
right,  they  will  sooner  forsake  wives,  children,  and  all  that 
they  have,  and  go  seek  through  the  seas  where  they  shall 
think  to  make  their  profit."  In  spite  therefore  of  Edward's 
efforts  the  contest  continued,  and  Philip  found  in  it  an  oppor- 
tunity to  cite  the  King  before  his  court  at  Paris  for  wrongs 
done  to  him  as  suzerain.  It  was  hard  for  Edward  to 
dispute  the  summons  without  weakening  the  position 
which  his  own  sovereign  courts  Jiad  taken  up  towards  the 
Scotch  King,  and  in  a  final  effort  to  avert  the  conflict  the 
King  submitted  to  a  legal  decision  of  the  question,  and  to 
a  formal  cession  of  Guienne  into  Philip's  hands  for  forty 
•days  in  acknowledgement  of  his  supremacy.  Bitter  as  the 
sacrifice  must  have  been  it  failed  to  win  peace.  The  forty 
days  had  no  sooner  passed  than  Philip  refused  to  restore 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  349 

the  fortresses  which  had  been  left  in  pledge.  In  February  CHAP.  IV. 
1294  he  declared  the  English  king  contumacious,  and  in  May  Edward 
declared  his  fiefs  forfeited  to  the  French  Crown.  Edward  thej^rst 
was  driven  to  take  up  arms,  but  a  revolt  in  Wales  deferred  1307" 
the  expedition  to  the  following  year.  No  sooner  however 
was  it  again  taken  in  hand  than  it  became  clear  that  a 
double  danger  had  to  be  met.  The  summons  which 
Edward  addressed  to  the  Scotch  barons  to  follow  him 
in  arms  to  Guienne  was  disregarded.  It  was  in  truth, 
as  we  have  seen,  a  breach  of  customary  law,  and  was 
probably  meant  to  force  Scotland  into  an  open  declaration 
of  its  connexion  with  France.  A  second  summons  was 
followed  by  a  more  formal  refusal.  The  greatness  of  the 
danger  threw  Edward  on  England  itself.  For  a  war  in 
Guienne  and  the  north  he  needed  supplies ;  but  he  needed 
yet  more  the  firm  support  of  his  people  in  a  struggle 
which,  little  as  he  foresaw  its  ultimate  results,  would 
plainly  be  one  of  great  difficulty  and  danger.  In  1295 
he  called  a  Parliament  to  counsel  with  him  on  the  affairs 
of  the  realm,  but  with  the  large  statesmanship  which 
distinguished  him  he  took  this  occasion  of  giving  the 
Parliament  a  shape  and  organization  which  has  left  its 
assembly  the  most  important  event  in  English  history. 

To  realize  its  importance  we  must  briefly  review  the  The 
changes  by  which  the  Great  Council  of  the  Norman  Kings  Q  16a  •/ 
had  been  gradually  transforming  itself  into  what  was 
henceforth  to  be  known  as  the  English  Parliament. 
Neither  the  Meeting  of  the  Wise  Men  before  the  Con- 
quest nor  the  Great  Council  of  the  Barons  after  it  had 
been  in  any  legal  or  formal  way  representative  bodies. 
The  first  theoretically  included  all  free  holders  of  land, 
but  it  shrank  at  an  early  time  into  a  gathering  of  earls, 
higher  nobles,  and  bishops  with  the  officers  and  thegns 
of  the  royal  household.  Little  change  was  made  in 
the  composition  of  this  assembly  by  the  Conquest,  for 
the  Great  Council  of  the  Norman  kings  was  supposed  to 
include  all  tenants  who  held  directly  of  the  Crown,  the 


350 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1272- 
1307. 


CHAP.  IV.   bishops  and  greater  abbots  (whose  character  as  independent 
Edward     spiritual  members  tended  more  and  more  to  merge  in  their 

the_First.  pOSition  as  barons),  and  the  high  officers  of  the  Court. 
But  though  its  composition  remained  the  same,  the 
character  of  the  assembly  was  essentially  altered ;  from 
a  free  gathering  of  "  Wise  Men "  it  sank  to  a  Royal 
Court  of  feudal  vassals.  Its  functions  too  seem  to  have 
become  almost  nominal  and  its  powers  to  have  been  re- 
stricted to  the  sanctioning,  without  debate  or  possibility 
of  refusal,  all  grants  demanded  from  it  by  the  Crown. 
But  nominal  as  such  a  sanction  might  be,  the  "  counsel 
and  consent "  of  the  Great  Council  was  necessary  for  the 
legal  validity  of  every  considerable  fiscal  or  political 
measure.  Its  existence  therefore  remained  an  effectual 
protest  against  the  imperial  theories  advanced  by  the  law- 
yers of  Henry  the  Second  which  declared  all  legislative 
power  to  reside  wholly  in  the  sovereign.  It  was  in  fact 
under  Henry  that  these  assemblies  became  more  regular, 
and  their  functions  more  important.  The  reforms  which 
marked  his  reign  were  issued  in  the  Great  Council,  and 
even  financial  matters  were  suffered  to  be  debated  there. 
But  it  was  not  till  the  grant  of  the  Great  Charter  that 
the  powers  of  this  assembly  over  taxation  were  formally 
recognized,  and  the  principle  established  that  no  burthen 
beyond  the  customary  feudal  aids  might  be  imposed 
"  save  by  the  Common  Council  of  the  Realm." 

The  same  document  first  expressly  regulated  its  form. 
In  theory,  as  we  have;  seen,  the  Great  Council  consioted 
of  all  who  held  land  directly  of  the  Crown.  But  the  samo 
causes  which  restricted  attendance  at  the  Witenagemote 
to  the  greater  nobles  told  on  tho  actual  composition  of 
the  Council  of  Barons.  While  the  attendance  of  the 
ordinary  tenants  in  chief,  the  Knights  or  "  Lesser  Barons  " 
as  they  were  called,  was  burthensome  from  its  expense 
to  themselves,  their  numbers  and  their  dependence  on 
the  higher  nobles  made  the  assembly  of  these  knights 
dangerous  to  the  Crown.  As  early  therefore  as  the 


Greater 

and 

Lesser 

Barons. 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


351 


Edward 
the  First 

1272- 

13O7, 


time  of  Henry  the  First  we  find  a  distinction  recognized  CHAP.  IV. 
between  the  "  Greater  Barons,"  of  whom  the  Council 
was  usually  composed,  and  the  "Lesser  Barons"  who 
formed  the  bulk  of  the  tenants  of  the  Crown.  But  though 
the  attendance  of  the  latter  had  become  rare  their  right 
of  attendance  remained  intact.  While  enacting  that 
the  prelates  and  greater  barons  should  be  summoned  by 
special  writs  to  each  gathering  of  the  Council  a  remarkable 
provision  of  the  Great  Charter  orders  a  general  summons 
to  be  issued  through  the  Sheriff  to  all  direct  tenants  of  the 
Crown.  The  provision  was  probably  intended  to  rouse  the 
lesser  Baronage  to  the  exercize  of  rights  which  had  prac- 
tically passed  into  desuetude,  but  as  the  clause  is  omitted 
in  later  issues  of  the  Charter  we  may  doubt  whether  the 
principle  it  embodied  ever  received  more  than  a  very 
limited  application.  There  are  traces  of  the  attendance 
of  a  few  of  the  lesser  knighthood,  gentry  perhaps  of  the 
neighbourhood  where  the  assembly  was  held,  in  some  of  its 
meetings  under  Henry  the  Third,  but  till  a  late  period  in 
the  reign  of  his  successor  the  Great  Council  practically 
remained  a  gathering  of  the  greater  barons,  the  prelates, 
and  the  high  officers  of  the  Crown. 

The   change  which   the   Great   Charter  had  failed  to    Constiiw 
accomplish  was  now  however  brought  about  by  the  social      tl°nal 

•  P      i  •  /^\  f*  i         J-fyJlUfiYlCCj 

circumstances  of  the  time.     One  of  the  most  remarkable        nf 


of  these  was  a  steady  decrease  in  the  number  of  the 
greater  nobles.  The  bulk  of  the  earldoms  had  already 
lapsed  to  the  Crown  through  the  extinction  of  the  families 
of  their  possessors ;  of  the  greater  baronies,  many  had 
practically  ceased  to  exist  by  their  division  among  female 
co-heires?es,  many  through  the  constant  struggle  of  the 
poorer  nobles  to  rid  themselves  of  their  rank  by  a  dis- 
claimer so  as  to  escape  the  burthen  of  higher  taxation 
and  attendance  in  Parliament  which  it  involved.  How 
far  this  diminution  had  gone  we  may  see  from  the  fact 
that  hardly  more  than  a  hundred  barons  sat  in  the  earlier 
Councils  of  Edward's  reign.  But  while  the  number  of 


r,. 

Finance. 


352  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  those  who  actually  exercized  the  privilege  of  assisting 
Edward  ^n  Parliament  was  rapidly  diminishing,  the  numbers  and 
thejrirst.  Wealth  of  the  "  lesser  baronage,"  whose  right  of  attendance 
ifof ~.  h&d  become  a  mere  constitutional  tradition,  was  as  rapidly 
increasing.  The  long  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  realm, 
the  extension  of  its  commerce  and  the  increased  export  of 
wool,  were  swelling  the  ranks  and  incomes  of  the  country 
gentry  as  well  as  of  the  freeholders  and  substantial 
yeomanry.  We  have  already  noticed  the  effects  of  the 
increase  of  wealth  in  begetting  a  passion  for  the  posses- 
sion of  land  which  makes  this  reign  so  critical  a  period 
in  the  history  of  the  English  freeholder;  but  the  same 
tendency  had  to  some  extent  existed  in  the  preceding 
century,  and  it  was  a  consciousness  of  the  growing  im- 
portance of  this  class  of  rural  proprietors  which  induced 
the  barons  at  the  moment  of  the  Great  Charter  to 
make  their  fruitless  attempt  to  induce  them  to  take  part 
in  the  deliberations  of  the  Great  Council.  But  while  the 
3,  barons  desired  their  presence  as  an  aid  against  the  Crown, 
the  Crown  itself  desired  it  as  a  means  of  rendering  taxation 
more  efficient.  So  long  as  the  Great  Council  remained 
a  mere  assembly  of  magnates  it  was  necessary  for  the 
King's  ministers  to  treat  separately  with  the  other  orders 
of  the  state  as  to  the  amount  and  assessment  of  their 
contributions.  The  grant  made  in  the  Great  Council  was 
binding  only  on  the  barons  and  prelates  who  made  it ;  but 
before  the  aids  of  the  boroughs,  the  Church,  or  the  shires 
could  reach  the  royal  treasury,  a  separate  negotiation  had 
to  be  conducted  by  the  officers  of  the  Exchequer  with  the 
reeves  of  each  town,  the  sheriff  and  shire-court  of  each 
county,  and  the  archdeacons  of  each  diocese.  Bargains  of 
this  sort  would  be  the  more  tedious  and  disappointing  as 
the  necessities  of  the  Crown  increased  in  the  later  years 
of  Edward,  and  it  became  a  matter  of  fiscal  expediency  to 
obtain  the  sanction  of  any  proposed  taxation  through  the 
presence  of  these  classes  in  the  Great  Council  itself. 
The  effort  however  to  revive  the  old  personal  attendance 


Hi.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  353 

of  the  lesser  baronage  which  had  broken  down  half  a  CHAP.  IV. 
century  before  could  hardly  be  renewed  at  a  time  when  Edward 
the  increase  of  their  numbers  made  it  more  impracticable  -^* 
than  ever;  but  a  means  of  escape  from  this  difficulty  was  1^07, 
fortunately  suggested  by  the  very  nature  of  the  court 
through  which  alone  a  summons  could  be  addressed  to  the 
landed  knighthood.  Amidst  the  many  judicial  reforms 
of  Henry  or  Edward  the  Shire  Court  remained  unchanged. 
The  haunted  mound  or  the  immemorial  oak  round  which 
the  assembly  gathered  (for  the  court  was  often  held  in  the 
open  air)  were  the  relics  of  a  time  before  the  free  kingdom 
had  sunk  into  a  shire  and  its  Meetings  of  the  Wise  into 
a  County  Court.  But  save  that  the  King's  reeve  had 
taken  the  place  of  the  King  and  that  the  Norman  legisla- 
tion had  displaced  the  Bishop  and  set  four  Coroners  by 
the  Sheriff's  side,  the  gathering  of  the  freeholders  remained 
much  as  of  old.  The  local  knighthood,  the  yeomanry, 
the  husbandmen  of  tlie  county,  were  all  represented  in 
the  crowd  that  gathered  round  the  Sheriff,  as  guarded 
by  his  liveried  followers  he  published  the  King's  writs, 
announced  his  demand  of  aids,  received  the  present- 
ment of  criminals  and  the  inquest  of  the  local  jurors, 
assessed  the  taxation  of  each  district,  or  listened  solemnly 
to  appeals  for  justice,  civil  and  criminal,  from  all  who 
held  themselves  oppressed  in  the  lesser  courts  of  the 
hundred  or  the  soke.  It  was  in  the  County  Court  alone 
that  the  Sheriff  could  legally  summon  the  lesser  baronage 
to  attend  the  Great  Council,  and  it  was  in  the  actual 
constitution  of  this  assembly  that  the  Crown  found  a 
solution  of  the  difficulty  which  we  have  stated.  For  the 
principle  of  representation  by  which  it  was  finally  solved 
was  coeval  with  the  Shire  Court  itself.  In  all  cases  of 
civil  or  criminal  justice  the  twelve  sworn  assessors  of  the 
Sheriff,  as  members  of  a  class,  though  not  formally  de- 
puted for  that  purpose,  practically  represented  the  judicial 
opinion  of  the  county  at  large.  From  every  hundred  came 
groups  of  twelve  s\vorn  deputies,  the  "jurors "  through 


354 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272- 
1307. 


Knights 
of  the 
Shire. 


whom  the  presentments  of  the  district  were  made  to  the 
royal  officer  and  with  whom  the  assessment  of  its  share  in 
the  general  taxation  was  arranged.  The  husbandmen  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  crowd,  clad  in  the  brown  smock  frock 
which  still  lingers  in  the  garb  of  our  carters  and  plough- 
men, were  broken  up  into  little  knots  of  five,  a  reeve  and  four 
assistants,  each  of  which  knots  formed  the  representative  of 
a  rural  township.  If  in  fact  we  regard  the  Shire  Courts  as 
lineally  the  descendants  of  our  earliest  English  Witenage- 
motes,  we  may  justly  claim  the  principle  of  parliamentary 
representation  as  among  the  oldest  of  our  institutions. 

It  was  easy  to  give  this  principle  a  further  extension 
by  the  choice  of  representatives  of  the  lesser  barons  in 
the  shire  courts  to  which  they  were  summoned;  but 
it  was  only  slowly  and  tentatively  that  this  process  was 
applied  to  the  reconstitution  of  the  Great  Council.  As 
early  as  the  close  of  John's  reign  there  are  indications  of 
the  approaching  change  in  the  summons  of  "  four  discreet 
knights  "  from  every  county.  Fresh  need  of  local  support 
was  felt  by  both  parties  in  the  conflict  of  the  succeeding 
reign,  and  Henry  and  his  barons  alike  summoned  knights 
from  each  shire  "  to  meet  on  the  common  business  of  the 
realm."  It  was  no  doubt  with  the  same  purpose  that 
the  writs  of  Earl  Simon  ordered  the  choice  of  knights  in 
each  shire  for  his  famous  Parliament  of  1265.  Something 
like  a  continuous  attendance  may  be  dated  from  the 
accession  of  Edward,  but  it  was  long  before  the  knights 
were  regarded  as  more  than  local  deputies  for  the  assess- 
ment of  taxation  or  admitted  to  a  share  in  the  general 
business  of  the  Great  Council.  The  statute  "  Quia 
Emptores,"  for  instance,  was  passed  in  it  before  the 
knights  who  had  been  summoned  could  attend.  Their 
participation  in  the  deliberative  power  of  Parliament,  as 
well  as  their  regular  and  continuous  attendance,  dates 
only  from  the  Parliament  of  1295.  But  a  far  greater 
constitutional  change  in  their  position  had  already  taken 
place  through  the  extension  of  electoral  rights  to  the 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  355 

freeholders  at  large.     The  one  class  entitled  to  a  seat  in  CHAP.  IV. 
the  Great  Council  was,  as  we  have  seen,  that  of  the  lesser     Edward 
baronage ;  and  it  was  of  the  lesser  baronage  alone  that  the   the  First, 
knights  were  in  theory  the  representatives.  But  the  necessity      HoiT 
of  holding  their  election  in  the  County  Court  rendered  any 
restriction   of  the   electoral   body   physically   impossible. 
The  court  was  composed  of  the  whole  body  of  freeholders, 
and  no  sheriff  could  distinguish  the  "  aye,  aye  "  of  the 
yeoman  from  the  "  aye,  aye  "  of  the  lesser  baron.     From 
the  first  moment  therefore   of  their  attendance  we  find 
the  knights  regarded  not  as  mere  representatives  of  the 
baronage  but  as  knights  of  the  shire,  and  by  this  silent 
revolution  the  whole  body  of  the  rural  freeholders  were 
admitted  to  a  share  in  the  government  of  the  realm. 

The  financial  difficulties  of  the  Crown  led  to  a  far  more  Boroughs 
radical  revolution  in  the  admission  into  the  Great  Council  aJ^ 
of  representatives  from  the  boroughs.  The  presence  of 
knights  from  each  shire  was  the  recognition  of  an  older 
right,  but  no  right  of  attendance  or  share  in  the  national 
"counsel  and  assent"  could  be  pleaded  for  the  burgesses 
of  the  towns.  On  the  other  hand  the  rapid  developement 
of  their  wealth  made  them  every  day  more  important  as 
elements  in  the  national  taxation.  From  all  payment  of 
the  dues  or  fines  exacted  by  the  King  as  the  original 
lord  of  the  soil  on  which  they  had  in  most  cases  grown 
up  the  towns  had  long  since  freed  themselves-  by  what 
was  called  the  purchase  of  the  "  farm  of  the  borough ; "  in 
other  words,  by  the  commutation  of  these  uncertain  dues 
for  a  fixed  sum  paid  annually  to  the  Crown  and  appor- 
tioned by  their  own  magistrates  among  the  general  body  of 
the  burghers.  All  that  the  King  legally  retained  was  the 
right  enjoyed  by  every  great  proprietor  of  levying  a  corre- 
sponding taxation  on  his  tenants  in  demesne  under  the 
name  of  "  a  free  aid  "  whenever  a  grant  was  made  for  the 
national  necessities  by  the  barons  of  the  Great  Council. 
But  the  temptation  of  appropriating  the  growing  wealth 
of  the  mercantile  class  proved  stronger  than  legal  restric- 


356 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272 
1307. 


Burgesses 
in  Par- 
liament, 


tions,  and  we  find  both  Henry  the  Third  and  his  son 
assuming  a  right  of  imposing  taxes  at  pleasure  and  without 
any  authority  from  the  Council  even  over  London  itself. 
The  burgesses  could  refuse  indeed  the  invitation  to  con- 
tribute to  the  "  free  aids  "  demanded  by  the  royal  officers, 
but  the  suspension  of  their  markets  or  trading  privileges 
brought  them  in  the  end  to  submission.  Each  of  these  "  free 
aids  "  however  had  to  be  extorted  after  a  long  wrangle 
between  the  borough  and  the  officers  of  the  Exchequei  ; 
and  if  the  towns  were  driven  to  comply  with  what  they 
considered  an  extortion  they  could  generally  force  the 
Crown  by  evasions  and  delays  to  a  compromise  and 
abatement  of  its  original  demands. 

The  same  financial  reasons  therefore  existed  for  desiring 
the  presence  of  borough  representatives  in  the  Great 
Council  as  existed  in  the  case  of  the  shires  ;  but  it  was  the 
genius  of  Earl  Simon  which  first  broke  through  the  older 
constitutional  tradition  and  summoned  two  burgesses  from 
each  town  to  the  Parliament  of  1265.  Time  had  indeed 
to  pass  before  the  large  and  statesmanlike  conception  of 
the  great  patriot  could  meet  with  full  acceptance.  Through 
the  earlier  part  of  Edward's  reign  we  find  a  few  instances 
of  the  presence  of  representatives  from  the  towns,  but 
their  scanty  numbers  and  the  irregularity  of  their  atten- 
dance show  that  they  were  summoned  rather  to  afford 
financial  information  to  the  Great  Council  than  as  repre- 
sentatives in  it  of  an  Estate  of  the  Eealm.  But  every 
year  pleaded  stronger  and  stronger  for  their  inclusion,  and 
in  the  Parliament  of  1295  that  of  1265  found  itself  at  last 
reproduced.  "  It  was  from  me  that  he  learnt  it,"  Earl 
Simon  had  cried,  as  he  recognized  the  military  skill  of 
Edward's  onset  at  Evesham ;  "  it  was  from  me  that  he 
learnt  it,"  his  spirit  might  have  exclaimed  as  he  saw  the 
King  gathering  at  last  two  burgesses  "from  every  city, 
borough,  and  leading  town "  within  his  realm  to  sit  side 
by  side  with  the  knights,  nobles,  and  barons  of  the  Great 
Council.  To  the  Crown  the  change  was  from  the  first  an 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  357 

advantageous  one.    The  grants  of  subsidies  by  the  burgesses  CHAP.  IV. 
in  Parliament  proved   more  profitable  than  the  previous     Edward 
extortions   of  the  Exchequer.     The  proportions  of  their   theJlrst- 
grant  generally  exceeded  that  of  the  other  estates.     Their     Ho/' 
representatives  too  proved  far  more  compliant  with  the 
royal  will  than  the  barons  or  knights  of  the  shire ;  only 
on  one  occasion  during  Edward's  reign  did  the  burgesses 
waver  from  their  general  support  of  the  Crown. 

It  was  easy  indeed  to  control  them,  for  the  selection 
of  boroughs  to  be  represented  remained  wholly  in  the 
King's  hands,  and  their  numbers  could  be  increased  or 
diminished  at  the  King's  pleasure.  The  determination 
was  left  to  the  sheriff,  and  at  a  hint  from  the  royal 
Council  a  sheriff  of  Wilts  would  cut  down  the  number  of 
represented  boroughs  in  his  shire  from  eleven  to  three, 
or  a  sheriff  of  Bucks  declare  he  could  find  but  a  single 
borough,  that  of  Wycomb,  within  the  bounds  of  his 
county.  Nor  was  this  exercize  of  the  prerogative  ham- 
pered by  any  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  towns  to  claim 
representative  privileges.  It  was  hard  to  suspect  that  a 
power  before  which  the  Crown  would  have  to  bow  lay 
in  the  ranks  of  soberly- clad  traders,  summoned  only  to 
assess  the  contributions  of  their  boroughs,  and  whose 
attendance  was  as  difficult  to  secure  as  it  seemed  burthen- 
some  to  themselves  and  the  towns  who  sent  them.  The 
mass  of  citizens  took  little  or  no  part  in  their  choice,  for 
they  were  elected  in  the  county  court  by  a  few  of  the 
principal  burghers  deputed  for  the  purpose ;  but  the  cost 
of  their  maintenance,  the  two  shillings  a  day  paid  to  the 
burgess  by  his  town  as  four  were  paid  to  the  knight  by 
his  county,  was  a  burden  from  which  the  boroughs  made 
desperate  efforts  to  escape.  Some  persisted  in  making  no 
return  to  the  sheriff.  Some  bought  charters  of  exemption 
from  the  troublesome  privilege.  Of  the  165  who  were 
summoned  by  Edward  the  First  more  than  a  third  ceased 
to  send  representatives  after  a  single  compliance  with  the 
royal  summons.  During  the  whole  time  from  the  reign  of 

VOL.  I.— 24 


358 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272- 
1307. 


Parlia- 
ment and 

the 
Clergy. 


Edward  the  Third  to  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Sixth  the 
sheriff  of  Lancashire  declined  to  return  the  names  of  any 
boroughs  at  all  within  that  county  "  on  account  of  their 
poverty."  Nor  were  the  representatives  themselves  more 
anxious  to  appear  than  their  boroughs  to  send  them.  The 
busy  country  squire  and  the  thrifty  trader  were  equally 
reluctant  to  undergo  the  trouble  and  expense  of  a  journey 
to  Westminster.  Legal  measures  were  often  necessary  to 
ensure  their  presence.  Writs  still  exist  in  abundance  such 
as  that  by  which  Walter  le  Kous  is  "  held  to  bail  in  eight 
oxen  and  four  cart-horses  to  come  before  the  King  on  the 
day  specified  "  for  attendance  in  Parliament.  But  in  spite 
of  obstacles  such  as  these  the  presence  of  representatives 
from  the  boroughs  may  be  regarded  as  continuous  from  the 
Parliament  of  1295.  As  the  representation  of  the  lesser 
barons  had  widened  through  a  silent  change  into  that  of 
the  shire,  so  that  of  the  boroughs— restricted  in  theory 
to  those  in  the  royal  demesne — seems  practically  from 
Edward's  time  to  have  been  extended  to  all  who  were  in  a 
condition  to  pay  the  cost  of  their  representatives'  support. 
By  a  change  as  silent  within  the  Parliament  itself  the 
burgess,  originally  summoned  to  take  part  only  in  matters 
of  taxation,  was  at  last  admitted  to  a  full  share  in  the  deli- 
berations and  authority  of  the  other  orders  of  the  State. 

The  admission  of  the  burgesses  and  knights  of  the  shire 
to  the  assembly  of  1295  completed  the  fabric  of  our 
representative  constitution.  The  Great  Council  of  the 
Barons  became  the  Parliament  of  the  Realm.  Every  order 
of  the  state  found  itself  represented  in  this  assembly,  and 
took  part  in  the  grant  of  supplies,  the  work  of  legislation, 
and  in  the  end  the  control  of  government.  But  though  in  all 
essential  points  the  character  of  Parliament  has  remained 
the  same  from  that  time  to  this,  there  were  some  remark- 
able particulars  in  which  the  assembly  of  1295  differed 
widely  from  the  present  Parliament  at  St.  Stephen's. 
Some  of  these  differences,  such  as  those  which  sprang 
from  the  increased  powers  and  changed  relations  of  the 


ill.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


359 


1272- 
1307. 


different  orders  among  themselves,  we  shall  have  occasion  CHAP.  IV. 
to  consider  at  a  later  time.  But  a  difference  of  a  far  Edward 
more  startling  kind  than  these  lay  in  the  presence  of  the  the  3 
clergy.  If  there  is  any  part  in  the  parliamentary  scheme 
of  Edward  the  .First  which  can  be  regarded  as  especially 
his  own,  it  is  his  project  for  the  representation  of  the 
ecclesiastical  order.  The  King  had  twice  at  least  summoned 
its  "proctors"  to  Great  Councils  before  1295,  but  it  was 
then,  only  that  the  complete  representation  of  the  Church 
was  definitely  organized  by  the  insertion  of  a  clause  in  the 
writ  which  summoned  a  bishop  to  Parliament  requiring 
the  personal  attendance  of  all  archdeacons,  deans,  or  priors 
of  cathedral  churches,  of  a  proctor  for  each  cathedral 
chapter,  and  two  for  the  clergy  within  his  diocese.  The 
clause  is  repeated  in  the  writs  of  the  present  day,  but 
its  practical  effect  was  foiled  almost  from  the  first  by  the 
resolute  opposition  of  those  to  whom  it  was  addressed. 
What  the  towns  failed  in  doing  the  clergy  actually  did. 
Even  when  forced  to  comply  with  the  royal  summons,  as 
they  seem  to  have  been  forced  during  Edward's  reign,  they 
sat  jealously  by  themselves,  and  their  refusal  to  vote 
supplies  in  any  but  their  own  provincial  assemblies,  or  con- 
vocations, of  Canterbury  and  York  left  the  Crown  without 
a  motive  for  insisting  on  their  continued  attendance. 
Their  presence  indeed,  though  still  at  times  granted  on 
some  solemn  occasions,  became  so  pure  a  formality  that  by 
the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  it  had  sunk  wholly  into 
desuetude.  In  their  anxiety  to  preserve  their  existence  as 
an  isolated  and  privileged  order  the  clergy  flung  away  a 
power  which,  had  they  retained  it,  would  have  ruinously 
hampered  the  healthy  developement  of  the  state.  To  take 
'a  single  instance,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  great 
changes  of  the  Eeformation  could  have  been  brought 
about  had  a  good  half  of  the  House  of  Commons  consisted 
purely  of  churchmen,  whose  numbers  would  have  been 
backed  by  the  weight  of  their  property  as  possessors  of  a 
third  of  the  landed  estates  of  the  realm. 


360 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272 
1307. 

Parlia- 
ment at 

West- 
minster. 


Conquest 

of 
Scotlaid. 


A  hardly  less  important  difference  may  be  found  in 
the  gradual  restriction  of  the  meetings  of  Parliament 
to  Westminster.  The  names  of  Edward's  statutes  remind 
us  of  its  convocation  at  the  most  various  quarters,  at 
Winchester,  Acton  Burnell,  Northampton.  It  was  at  a 
later  time  that  Parliament  became  settled  in  the  straggling 
village  which  had  grown  up  in  the  marshy  swamp  of  the  Isle 
of  Thorns  beside  the  palace  whose  embattled  pile  towered 
over  the  Thames  and  the  new  West-minster  which  was 
still  rising  in  Edward's  day  on  the  site  of  the  older  church 
of  the  Confessor.  It  is  possible  that,  while  contributing 
greatly  to  its  constitutional  importance,  this  settlement 
of  the  Parliament  may  have  helped  to  throw  into  the 
background  its  character  as  a  supreme  court  of  appeal. 
The  proclamation  by  which  it  was  called  together  invited 
"all  who  had  any  grace  to  demand  of  the  King  in 
Parliament,  or  any  plaint  to  make  of  matters  which 
could  not  be  redressed  or  determined  by  ordinary  course 
of  law,  or  who  had  been  in  any  way  aggrieved  by  any 
of  the  King's  ministers  or  justices  or  sheriffs,  or  their 
bailiffs,  or  any  other  officer,  or  have  been  unduly  assessed, 
rated,  charged,  or  sur-charged  to  aids,  subsidies,  or  taxes," 
to  deliver  their  petitions  to  receivers  who  sat  in  the  Great 
Hall  of  the  Palace  of  Westminster.  The  petitions  were 
forwarded  to  the  King's  Council,  and  it  was  probably 
the  extension  of  the  jurisdiction  of  that  body  and  the 
rise  of  the  Court  of  Chancery  which  reduced  this  ancient 
right  of  the  subject  to  the  formal  election  of  "  Triers  of 
Petitions"  at  the  opening  of  every  new  Parliament  by 
the  House  of  Lords,  a  usage  which  is  still  continued. 
But  it  must  have  been  owing  to  some  memory  of  the 
older  custom  that  ihe  subject  always  looked  for  redress 
against  injuries  from  the  Crown  or  its  ministers  to  the 
Parliament  of  the  realm. 

The  subsidies  granted  by  the  Parliament  of  1295 
furnished  the  King  with  the  means  of  warfare  with 
both  Scotland  and  France  while  they  assured  him  of  the 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


361 


sympathy  of  his  people  in  the  contest.  But  from  the 
first  the  reluctance  of  Edward  to  enter  on  the  double  war 
was  strongly  marked.  The  refusal  of  the  Scotch  baronage 
to  obey  his  summons  had  been  followed  on  Balliol's  part 
by  two  secret  steps  which  made  a  struggle  inevitable,  by 
a  request  to  Eome  for  absolution  from  his  oath  of  fealty 
and  by  a  treaty  of  alliance  with  Philip  the  Fair.  As  yet 
however  no  open  breach  had  taken  place,  and  while 
Edward  in  1296  summoned  his  knighthood  to  meet  him 
in  the  north  he  called  a  Parliament  at  Newcastle  in  the 
hope  of  bringing  about  an  accommodation  with  the  Scot 
King.  But  all  thought  of  accommodation  was  roughly 
ended  by  the  refusal  of  Balliol  to  attend  the  Parliament, 
by  the  rout  of  a  small  body  of  English  troops,  and  by 
the  Scotch  investment  of  Carlisle.  Taken  as  he  was  by 
surprize,  Edward  showed  at  once  the  vigour  and  rapidity 
of  his  temper.  His  army  marched  upon  Berwick.  The 
town  was  a  rich  and  well-peopled  one,  and  although  a 
wooden  stockade  furnished  its  only  rampart  the  serried 
ranks  of  citizens  behind  it  gave  little  hope  of  an  easy 
conquest.  Their  taunts  indeed  stung  the  King  to  the 
quick.  As  his  engineers  threw  up  rough  entrenchments 
for  the  besieging  army  the  burghers  bade  him  wait  till  he 
won  the  town  before  he  began  digging  round  it.  "  Kynge 
Edward,"  they  shouted, "  waune  thou  havest  Berwick,  pike 
thee ;  waune  thou  havest  geten,  dike  thee."  But  the 
stockade  was  stormed  with  the  loss  of  a  single  knight, 
nearly  eight  thousand  of  the  citizens  were  mown  down  in 
a  ruthless  carnage,  and  a  handful  of  Flemish  traders  who 
held  the  town-hall  stoutly  against  all  assailants  were  burned 
alive  in  it.  The  massacre  only  ceased  when  a  procession 
of  priests  bore  the  host  to  the  King's  presence,  praying  for 
mercy.  Edward  with  a  sudden  and  characteristic  burst  of 
tears  called  off  his  troops ;  but  the  town  was  ruined  for 
ever,  and  the  greatest  merchant  city  of  northern  Britain 
sank  from  that  time  into  a  petty  sea-port. 
At  Berwick  Edward  received  Balliol's  formal  defiance. 


CHAP.  IV. 

Edward 
the  First. 

1272-] 
13O7. 


362  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  "Has  the  fool  done  this  folly?"  the  King  cried  in  haughty 
Edward  scorn ;  "if  he  will  not  come  to  us,  we  will  come  to  him." 
thePirst.  ^e  terrible  slaughter  however  had  done  its  work,  and  his 
iio7  march  northward  was  a  triumphal  progress.  Edinburgh, 
Stirling,  and  Perth  opened  their  gates,  Bruce  joined  the 
English  army,  and  Balliol  himself  surrendered  and  passed 
without  a  blow  from  his  throne  to  an  English  prison.  No 
further  punishment  however  was  exacted  from  the  prostrate 
realm.  Edward  simply  treated  it  as  a  fief,  and  declared  its 
forfeiture  to  be  the  legal  consequence  of  Balliol's  treason. 
It  lapsed  in  fact  to  its  suzerain  ;  and  its  earls,  barons,  and 
gentry  swore  homage  in  Parliament  at  Berwick  to  Edward 
as  their  King.  The  sacred  stone  on  which  its  older  sove- 
reigns had  been  installed,  an  oblong  block  of  limestone 
which  legend  asserted  to  have  been  the  pillow  of  Jacob  as 
angels  ascended  arid  descended  upon  him,  was  removed 
from  Scone  and  placed  in  Westminster  by  the  shrine  of  the 
Confessor.  It  was  enclosed  by  Edward's  order  in  a  stately 
seat,  which  became  from  that  hour  the  coronation  chair  of 
English  Kings.  To  the  King  himself  the  whole  business 
must  have  seemed  another  and  easier  conquest  of  Wales, 
and  the  mercy  and  just  government  which  had  followed 
his  first  success  followed  his  second  also.  The  govern- 
ment of  the  new  dependency  was  entrusted  to  John  of 
Warenne,  Earl  of  Surrey,  at  the  head  of  an  English 
Council  of  Regency.  Pardon  was  freely  extended  to  all 
who  had  resisted  the  invasion,  and  order  and  public  peace 
were  rigidly  enforced. 

Confirma-       But  the  triumph,  rapid  and  complete  as  it   was,  had 
tion  of  the  In0re  than  exhausted  the  aids  granted  by  the  Parliament. 

Charters 

The  treasury  was  utterly  drained.  The  struggle  indeed 
widened  as  every  month  went  on ;  the  costly  fight  with  the 
French  in  Gascony  called  for  supplies,  while  Edward  was 
planning  a  yet  costlier  attack  on  northern  France  with 
the  aid  of  Flanders.  Need  drove  him  on  his  return  from 
Scotland  in  1297  to  measures  of  tyrannical  extortion  which 
seemed  to  recall  the  times  of  John.  His  first  blow  fell  on 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204-1291. 


363 


1272 
1307 


the  Church.  At  the  close  of  1294  he  had  already  demanded  CHAP.  IV. 
half  their  annual  income  from  the  clergy,  and  so  terrible  E<iwar(i 
was  his  wrath  at  their  resistance  that  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  the  First, 
who  stood  forth  to  remonstrate,  dropped  dead  of  sheer  terror 
at  his  feet.  "  If  any  oppose  the  King's  demand,"  said  a 
royal  envoy  in  the  midst  of  the  Convocation,  "let  him 
stand  up  that  he  may  be  noted  as  an  enemy  to  the  King's 
peace."  The  outraged  Churchmen  fell  back  on  an  unten- 
able plea  that  their  aid  was  due  solely  to  Rome,  and 
alleged  the  bull  of  "Clericis  Laicos,"  issued  by  Boniface 
the  Eighth  at  this  moment,  a  bull  which  forbad  the 
clergy  to  pay  secular  taxes  from  their  ecclesiastical 
revenues,  as  a  ground  for  refusing  to  comply  with  further 
taxation.  In  1297  Archbishop  AVinchelsey  refused  on  the 
ground  of  this  bull  to  make  any  grant,  and  Edward  met 
his  refusal  by  a  general  outlawry  of  the  whole  order.  The 
King's  courts  were  closed,  and  all  justice  denied  to  those 
who  refused  the  King  aid.  By  their  actual  plea  the 
clergy  had  put  themselves  formally  in  the  wrong,  and  the 
outlawry  soon  forced  them  to  submission ;  but  their  aid 
did  little  to  recruit  the  exhausted  treasury.  The  pressure 
of  the  war  steadily  increased,  and  far  wider  measures  of 
arbitrary  taxation  wrere  needful  to  equip  an  expedition 
which  Edward  prepared  to  lead  in  person  to  Flanders. 
The  country  gentlemen  were  compelled  to  take  up  knight- 
hood or  to  compound  for  exemption  from  the  burthensome 
honour,  and  forced  contributions  of  cattle  and  corn  were 
demanded  from  the  counties.  Edward  no  doubt  purposed 
to  pay  honestly  for  these  supplies,  but  his  exactions  from 
the  merchant  class  rested  on  a  deliberate  theory  of  his  royal 
rights.  He  looked  on  the  customs  as  levied  absolutely  at 
his  pleasure,  and  the  export  duty  on  wool — now  the  staple 
produce  of  the  country — was  raised  to  six  times  its  former 
amount.  Although  he  infringed  no  positive  provision  of 
charter  or  statute  in  his  action,  it  was  plain  that  his  course 
really  undid  all  that  had  been  gained  by  the  Barons'  war. 
But  the  blow  had  no  sooner  been  struck  than  Edward  found 


364 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV.  stout  resistance  within  his  realm.  The  barons  drew  together 
Edward  an(^  catted  a  meeting  for  the  redress  of  their  grievances, 
the  First. 

1272- 
1307. 


two  greatest  of  the  English  nobles,  Humfrey  cle  Bohun, 
Earl  of  Hereford,  and  Eoger  Bigod,  Earl  of  Norfolk,  placed 
themselves  at  the  head  of  the  opposition.  The  first  was 
Constable,  the  second  Earl  Marshal,  and  Edward  bade 
them  lead  a  force  to  Gascony  as  his  lieutenants  while  he 
himself  sailed  to  Flanders.  Their  departure  would  have 
left  the  Baronage  without  leaders,  and  the  two  earls  availed 
themselves  of  a  plea  that  they  were  riot  bound  to  foreign 
service  save  in  attendance  on  the  King  to  refuse  obedience 
to  the  royal  orders.  "By  God,  Sir  Earl,"  swore  the  King 
to  the  Earl  Marshal,  "  you  shall  either  go  or  hang  ! "  "  By 
God,  Sir  King,"  was  the  cool  reply,  "  I  will  neither  go  nor 
hang  !"  Both  parties  separated  in  bitter  anger;  the  King 
to  seize  fresh  wool,  to  outlaw  the  clergy,  and  to  call  an 
army  to  his  aid ;  the  barons  to  gather  in  arms,  backed  by 
the  excommunication  of  the  Primate.  But  the  strife  went 
no  further  than  words.  Ere  the  Parliament  he  had  con- 
vened could  meet,  Edward  had  discovered  his  own  power- 
lessness;  Winchelsey  offered  his  mediation;  and  Edward 
confirmed  the  Great  Charter  and  the  Charter  of  Forests  as 
the  price  of  a  grant  from  the  clergy  and  a  subsidy  from  the 
Commons.  With  one  of  those  sudden  revulsions  of  feeling 
of  which  his  nature  was  capable  the  King  stood  before  his 
people  in  Westminster  Hall  and  owned  with  a  burst  of 
tears  that  he  had  taken  their  substance  without  due  warrant 
of  law.  His  passionate  appeal  to  their  loyalty  wrested  a  re- 
luctant assent  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  in  August 
Edward  sailed  for  Flanders,  leaving  his  son  regent  of 
the  realm.  But  the  crisis  had  taught  the  need  of  further 
securities  against  the  royal  power,  and  as  Edward  was 
about  to  embark  the  barons  demanded  his  acceptance  of 
additional  articles  to  the  Charter,  expressly  renoun- 
cing his  right  of  taxing  the  nation  without  its  own 
consent.  The  King  sailed  without  complying,  but  Win- 
chelsey joined  the  two  earls  and  the  citizens  of  London  in 


ill.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  365 

forbidding  any  levy  of  supplies  till  the  Great  Charter  with  CHAP.  IV. 
these   clauses   was   again  confirmed,   and  the  trouble  in     Edward 
Scotland  as  well  as   the  still  pending  strife  with  France 
left  Edward  helpless  in   the   barons'  hands.     The   Great     1307. 
Charter  and  the  Charter  of   the  Forests  were   solemnly 
confirmed  by  him  at  Ghent  in  November ;    and  formal 
pardon  was  issued  to  the  Earls  of  Hereford  and  Norfolk. 

The  confirmation  of  the  Charter,  the  renunciation  of  any    Revolt  of 
right  to  the  exactions  by  which  the  people  were  aggrieved, 
the  pledge  that  the  King  would  no  more  take  "  such  aids, 
tasks,  and  prizes  but  by  common  assent  of  the  realm,"  the 
promise  not  to  impose  on  wool   any  heavy  customs  or 
"  maletot "  without  the  same  assent,  was  the  close  of  the 
great   struggle   which   had  begun   at   Eunnymede.      The 
clauses  so  soon  removed  from  the   Great  Charter  were 
now  restored ;  and  evade  them  as  they  might,  the  kings 
were  never  able  to  free  themselves  from  the  obligation  to 
seek  aid  solely  from  the  general  consent  of  their  subjects. 
It  was  Scotland  which  had  won  this  victory  for  English 
freedom.     At  the   moment  when   Edward  and  the  earls 
stood  face  to  face  the  King  saw  his  work  in  the  north 
suddenly  undone.     Botli  the  justice  and  injustice  of  the 
new  rule  proved  fatal  to  it.   The  wrath  of  the  Scots,  already 
kindled  by  the  intrusion  of  English  priests  into  Scotch 
livings  and  by  the  grant  of   lands  across  the  border  to 
English  barons,  was  fanned  to  fury  by  the  strict  adminis- 
tration of  law   and  the  repression  of   feuds   and   cattle- 
lifting.     The  disbanding  too  of  troops,  which  was  caused 
by  the  penury  of  the  royal  exchequer,  united  with  the 
licence  of   the   soldiery   who   remained   to   quicken   the 
national  sense  of  wrong.     The  disgraceful  submission  of 
their  leaders  brought  the  people  themselves  to  the  front. 
In  spite  of  a  hundred  years  of  peace  the  farmer  of  Fife  or 
the  Lowlands  and  the  artizan  of  the  towns  remained  stout- 
hearted   Northumbrian    Englishmen.      They   had    never 
consented  to  Edward's  supremacy,    and  their  blood  rose 
against  the  insolent  rule  of  the  stranger.     The  genius  of 


366 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


BOOK 


CHAP.  IV.  an  outlaw  knight,  William  Wallace,  saw  in  their  smoulder- 
Edward  ing  discontent  a  hope  of  freedom  for  his  country,  and  his 

thejFirst.  <3aring  raids  on  outlying  parties  of  the  English  soldiery 
ilofT  roused  the  country  at  last  into  revolt. 

Wallace  ^  Wallace  himself,  of  his  life  or  temper,  we  know 
little  or  nothing ;  the  very  traditions  of  his  gigantic  stature 
and  enormous  strength  are  dim  and  unhistorical.  But  the 
instinct  of  the  Scotch  people  has  guided  it  aright  in  choos- 
ing him  for  its  national  hero.  He  was  the  first  to  assert 
freedom  as  a  national  birthright,  and  amidst  the  despair 
of  nobles  and  priests  to  call  the  people  itself  to  arms.  At 
the  head  of  an  army  drawn  principally  from  the  coast 
districts  north  of  the  Tay,  which  were  inhabited  by  a 
population  of  the  same  blood  as  that  of  the  Lowlands, 
Wallace  in  September  1297  encamped  near  Stirling,  the 
pass  between  the  north  and  the  south,  and  awaited  the 
English  advance.  It  was  here  that  he  was  found  by  the 
English  army.  The  offers  of  John  of  Warenne  were 
scornfully  rejected :  "  WTe  have  come,"  said  the  Scottish 
leader,  "  not  to  make  peace,  but  to  free  our  country."  The 
position  of  Wallace  behind  a  loop  of  Forth  was  in  fact 
chosen  with  consummate  skill  The  one  bridge  which 
crossed  the  river  was  only  broad  enough  to  admit  two 
horsemen  abreast ;  and  though  the  English  army  had  been 
passing  from  daybreak  but  half  its  force  was  across  at 
noon  when  Wallace  closed  on  it  and  cut  it  after  a  short 
combat  to  pieces  in  sight  of  its  comrades.  The  retreat  of 
the  Earl  of  Surrey  over  the  border  left  Wallace  head  of 
the  country  he  had  freed,  and  for  a  few  months  he  acted  as 
"  Guardian  of  the  Realm  "  in  Balliol's  name,  and  headed 
a  wild  foray  into  Northumberland  in  which  the  barbarous 
cruelties  of  his  men  left  a  bitter  hatred  behind  them 
which  was  to  wreak  its  vengeance  in  the  later  bloodshed 
of  the  war.  His  reduction  of  Stirling  Castle  at  last  called 
Edward  to  the  field.  In  the  spring  of  1298  the  King's 
diplomacy  had  at  last  wrung  a  trace  for  two  years  from 
Philip  the  Fair ;  and  he  at  once  returned  to  England  to 


in.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291.  367 

face  the  troubles  in  Scotland.  Marching  northward  with  CHAP.  IV. 
a  larger  host  than  had  ever  followed  his  banner,  he  was  Edward 
enabled  by  treachery  to  surprize  Wallace  as  he  fell  back  to  thej^rst-- 
avoid  an  engagement,  and  to  force  him  on  the  twenty-  \%O7, 
second  of  July  to  battle  near  Falkirk.  The  Scotch  force 
consisted  almost  wholly  of  foot,  and  Wallace  drew  up 
his  spearmen  in  four  great  hollow  circles  or  squares,  the 
outer  ranks  kneeling  and  the  whole  supported  by  bow- 
men within,  while  a  small  force  of  horse  were  drawn  up  as 
a  reserve  in  the  rear.  It  was  the  formation  of  Waterloo, 
the  first  appearance  in  our  history  since  the  day  of  Senlac 
of  "  that  unconquerable  British  infantry "  before  which 
chivalry  was  destined  to  go  down.  For  a  moment  it  had 
all  Waterloo's  success.  "  I  have  brought  you  to  the  ring, 
hop  (dance)  if  you  can,"  are  words  of  rough  humour  that 
reveal  the  very  soul  of  the  patriot  leader,  and  the  ser- 
ried ranks  answered  well  to  his  appeal.  The  Bishop  of 
Durham  who  led  the  English  van  shrank  wisely  from  the 
look  of  the  squares.  "  Back  to  your  mass,  Bishop,"  shouted 
the  reckless  knights  behind  him,  but  the  body  of  horse 
dashed  itself  vainly  on  the  wall  of  spears.  Terror  spread 
through  the  English  army,  and  its  Welsh  auxiliaries  drew 
off  in  a  body  from'  the  field.  But  the  generalship  of 
Wallace  was  met  by  that  of  the  King.  Drawing  his  bow- 
men to  the  front,  Edward  riddled  the  Scottish  ranks  with 
arrows  and  then  hurled  his  cavalry  afresh  on  the  wavering 
line.  In  a  moment  all  was  over,  the  maddened  knights 
rode  in  and  out  of  the  broken  ranks,  slaying  without 
mercy.  Thousands  fell  on  the  field,  and  Wallace  himself 
escaped  with  difficulty,  followed  by  a  handful  of  men. 

But  ruined  as  the  cause  of  freedom  seemed,  his  work      Second 
was   done.     He  had  roused  Scotland  into  life,  and  even    Conquest 
a   defeat   like   Falkirk    left    her   unconquered.      Edward  gco^and. 
remained  master  only  of  the  ground  he  stood  on :  want  of 
supplies  forced  .him  at  last  to  retreat ;  and  in  the  summer 
of  the  following  year,  1299,  when  Balliol,  released  from 
his  English  prison,  withdrew  into  France,  a  regency  of  the 


368  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  Scotch  nobles  under  Robert  Bruce  and  John  Coinyn 
Edward  continued  the  struggle  for  independence.  Troubles  at 

the£irst.  }lonie  ancl  danger  from  abroad  stayed  Edward's  hand.  The 
ilo?  barons  still  distrusted  his  sincerity,  and  though  at 
their  demand  he  renewed  the  Confirmation  in  the  spring 
of  1299,  his  attempt  to  add  an  evasive  clause  saving  the 
right  of  the  Crown  proved  the  justice  of  their  distrust, 
In  spite  of  a  fresh  and  unconditional  renewal  of  it  a 
strife  over  the  Forest  Charter  went  on  till  the  opening  of 
1301  when  a  new  gathering  of  the  barons  in  arms  with 
the  support  of  Archbishop  Winchelsey  wrested  from  him 
its  full  execution.  What  aided  freedom  within  was  as  of 
old  the  peril  without.  France  was  still  menacing,  and  a 
claim  advanced  by  Pope  Boniface  the  Eighth  at  its  sug- 
.gestion  to  the  feudal  superiority  over  Scotland  arrested 
a  new  advance  of  the  King  across  the  border.  A 
quarrel  however  which  broke  out  between  Philip  le  Bel 
and  the  Papacy  removed  all  obstacles.  It  enabled  Edward 
to  defy  Boniface  and  to  wring  from  France  a  treaty  in 
which  Scotland  was  abandoned.  In  1304  he  resumed  the 
work  of  invasion,  and  again  the  nobles  flung  dowrn  their 
arms  as  he  marched  to  the  North.  Comyn,  at  the  head 
of  the  Eegency,  acknowledged  his  sovereignty,  and  the 
surrender  of  Stirling  completed  the  conquest  of  Scotland. 
But  the  triumph  of  Edward  was  only  the  prelude  to  the 
carrying  out  of  his  designs  for  knitting  the  two  countries 
together  by  a  generosity  and  wisdom  which  reveal  the 
greatness  of  his  statesmanship.  A  general  amnesty  was 
extended  to  all  who  had  shared  in  the  resistance.  Wallace, 
who  refused  to  avail  himself  of  Edward's  mercy,  was 
captured  and  condemned  to  death  at  Westminster  on 
charges  of  treason,  sacrilege,  and  robbery.  The  head  of 
the  great  patriot,  crowned  in  mockery  with  a  circlet  of 
laurel,  was  placed  upon  London  Bridge.  But  the  execution 
of  Wallace  was  the  one  blot  on  Edward's  clemency.  With 
a  masterly  boldness  he  entrusted  the  government  of  the 
country  to  a  council  of  Scotch  nobles,  many  of  whom  were 


III.] 


THE  CHARTER.     1204—1291. 


369 


1272 
13O7. 


Rising  of 
Bruce. 


freshly  pardoned  for  their  share  in  the  war,  and  anticipated  CHAP.  IV. 
the  policy  of  Cromwell  by  allotting  ten  representatives  Edward 
to  Scotland  in  the  Common  Parliament  of  his  realm.  >A  theiirst- 
Convocation  was  summoned  at  Perth  for  the  election  of 
these  representatives,  and  a  great  judicial  scheme  which 
was  promulgated  in  this  assembly  adopted  the  amended 
laws  of  King  David  as  the  base  of  a  new  legislation,  and 
divided  the  country  for  judicial  purposes  into  four  districts, 
Lothian,  Galloway,  the  Highlands,  and  the  land  between 
the  Highlands  and  the  Forth,  at  the  head  of  each  of 
which  were  placed  two  justiciaries,  the  one  English  and 
the  other  Scotch. 

With  the  conquest  and  settlement  of  Scotland  the 
glory  of  Edward  seemed  again  complete.  The  bitterness 
of  his  humiliation  at  home  indeed  still  preyed  upon 
him,  and  in  measure  after  measure  we  see  his  purpose 
of  renewing  the  strife  with  the  baronage.  In  1303  he 
found  a  means  of  evading  his  pledge  to  levy  no  new 
taxes  on  merchandize  save  by  assent  of  the  realm  in  a 
consent  of  the  foreign  merchants,  whether  procured  by 
royal  pressure  or  no,  to  purchase  by  stated  payments 
certain  privileges  of  trading.  In  this  "  New  Custom  " 
lay  the  origin  of  our  import  duties.  A  formal  absolu- 
tion from  his  promises  which  he  obtained  from  Pope 
Clement  the  Fifth  in  1305  showed  that  he  looked  on  his 
triumph  in  the  North  as  enabling  him  to  reopen  the  ques- 
tions which  he  had  yielded.  But  again  Scotland  stayed 
his  hand.  Only  four  months  had  passed  since  its  submis- 
sion, and  he  was  preparing  for  a  joint  Parliament  of  the  two 
nations  at  Carlisle,  when  the  conquered  country  suddenly 
sprang  again  to  arms.  Its  new  leader  was  Eobert  Bruce, 
a  grandson  of  one  of  the  original  claimants  of  the  crown. 

o  o 

The  Norman  house  of  Bruce  formed  a  part  of  the  York- 
shire baronage,  "but  it  had  acquired  through  intermarriages 
the  Earldom  of  Carrick  and  the  Lordship  of  Annandale. 
Both  the  claimant  and  his  son  had  been  pretty  steadily  on 
the  English  side  in  the  contest  with  Balliol  and  Wallace, 


370  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  and  Eobert  had  himself  been  trained  in  the  English  court 
Edward  an(l  stood  high  in  the  King's  favour.  But  the  withdrawal 
theFirst.  Of  ;ga]jioi  gave  a  new  force  to  his  claims  upon  the  crown, 
ilozT  and  the  discovery  of  an  intrigue  which  he  had  set  on  foot 
with  the  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews  so  roused  Edward's  jeal- 
ousy that  Bruce  fled  for  his  life  across  the  border.  Early 
in  1306  he  met  Cornyn,  the  Lord  of  Badenoch,  to  whose 
treachery  he  attributed  the  disclosure  of  his  plans,  in 
the  church  of  the  Grey  Friars  at  Dumfries,  and  after  the 
interchange  of  a  few  hot  words  struck  him  with  his  dagger 
to  the  ground.  It  was  an  outrage  that  admitted  of  no  for- 
giveness, and  Bruce  for  very  safety  was  forced  to  assume 
the  crown  six  weeks  after  in  the  Abbey  of  Scone.  The 
news  roused  Scotland  again  to  arms,  and  summoned 
Edward  to  a  fresh  contest  with  his  unconquerable  foe. 
But  the  murder  of  Comyn  had  changed  the  King's  mood 
to  a  terrible  pitilessness.  He  threatened  death  against  all 
concerned  in  the  outrage,  and  exposed  the  Countess  of 
Buchan,  who  had  set  the  crown  on  Bruce's  head,  in  a  cage 
or  open  chamber  built  for  the  purpose  in  one  of  the  towers 
of  Berwick.  At  the  solemn  feast  which  celebrated  his  son's 
knighthood  Edward  vowed  on  the  swan  which  formed  the 
chief  dish  at  the  banquet  to  devote  the  rest  of  his  days  to 
exact  vengeance  from  the  murderer  himself.  But  even  at 
the  moment  of  the  vow  Bruce  was  already  flying  for  his 
life  to  the  western  islands.  "  Henceforth  "  he  said  to  his 
wife  at  their  coronation  "  thou  art  Queen  of  Scotland  and  I 
King."  "  I  fear  "  replied  Mary  Bruce  "  we  are  only  playing 
at  royalty  like  children  in  their  games."  The  play  was  soon 
turned  into  bitter  earnest.  A  small  English  force  under 
Aymer  de  Valence  sufficed  to  rout  the  disorderly  levies 
which  gathered  round  the  new  monarch,  and  the  flight  of 
Bruce  left  his  followers  at  Edward's  mercy.  Noble  after 
noble  was  sent  to  the  block.  The  Earl  of  Athole  pleaded 
kindred  with  royalty.  "  His  only  privilege,"  burst  forth  the 
King,  "  shall  be  that  of  being  hanged  on  a  higher  gallows 
than  the  rest."  Knights  and  priests  were  strung  up  side 


III.]  THE  CHARTER.     1204-1291.  371 

by  side  by  the  English  justiciaries  ;  while  the  wife  and  CHAP,  iv 
daughters  of  Robert  Bruce  were  flung  into  Edward's  Edward 
prisons.  Bruce  himself  had  offered  to  capitulate  to  Prince 
Edward.  But  the  offer  only  roused  the  old  King  to  fury. 
"  Who  is  so  bold,"  he  cried,  "  as  to  treat  with  our  traitors 
without  our  knowledge  ? "  and  rising  from  his  sick  bed  he 
led  his  army  northwards  in  the  summer  of  1307  to  com- 
plete the  conquest.  But  the  hand  of  death  was  upon'  him, 
and  in  the  very  sight  of  Scotland  the  old  man  breathed  his 
last  at  Burgh-upon-sands. 


BOOK  IV. 

THE  PARLIAMENT. 

1307—1461. 


VOL.  1.— 25 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  BOOK  IV. 

FOR  Edward  the  Second  we  have  three  important  contemporaries  : 
Thomas  de  la  More,  Trokelowe's  Annals,  and  the  life  by  a  monk  of 
Malmesbury  printed  by  Hearne.  The  sympathies  of  the  first  are  with 
the  King,  those  of  the  last  two  with  the  Barons.  Murimuth's  short 
Chronicle  is  also  contemporary.  John  Barbour's  "  Bruce,"  the  great 
legendary  storehouse  for  his  hero's  adventures,  is  historically 
worthless. 

Important  as  it  is,  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Third  is  by  no  means 
fortunate  in  its  annalists.  The  concluding  part  of  the  Chronicle  of 
Walter  of  Hemingford  or  Heminburgh  seems  to  have  been  jotted 
down  as  news  of  the  passing  events  reached  its  author  :  it  ends  at  the 
battle  of  Crecy.  Hearne  has  published  another  contemporary  account, 
that  of  Robert  of  Avesbury,  which  closes  in  1356.  A  third  account 
by  Knyghton,  a  canon  of  Leicester,  will  be  found  in  the  collection  of 
Twysden.  At  the  end  of  this  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  next 
the  annals  which  had  been  carried  on  in  the  Abbey  of  St.  Albans  were 
thrown  together  by  Walsingham  in  the  "  Historia  Anglicana  "  which 
bears  his  name,  a  compilation  whose  history  may  be  found  in  the 
prefaces  to  the  "  Chronica  Monasterii  S.  Albani "  issued  in  the  Rolls 
Series.  An  anonymous  chronicler  whose  work  is  printed  in  the  22nd 
volume  of  the  "  Archneologia "  has  given  us  the  story  of  the  Good 
Parliament,  another  account  is  preserved  in  the  "  Chronica  Anglise 
from  1328  to  1388,"  published  in  the  Rolls  Series,  and  fresh  light  has 
been  recently  thrown  on  the  time  by  the  publication  of  a  Chronicle  by 
Adam  of  Usk  which  extends  from  1377  to  1404.  Fortunately  the 
scantiness  of  historical  narrative  is  compensated  by  the  growing 
fulness  and  abundance  of  our  Statepapers.  Rymer's  Fcedera  is  rich 
in  diplomatic  and  other  documents  for  this  period,  and  from  this  time 
we  have  a  storehouse  of  political  and  social  information  in  the  Parlia- 
mentary Rolls. 

For  the  French  war  itself  our  primary  authority  is  the  Chronicle 
of  Jehan  le  Bel,  a  canon  of  the  church  of  St.  Lambert  of  Liege, 
who  himself  served  in  Edward's  campaign  against  the  Scots  and 
spent  the  rest  of  his  life  at  the  court  of  John  of  Hainault.  Up  to 
the  Treaty  of  Bretigny,  where  it  closes,  Froissart  has  done  little 
more  than  copy  this  work,  making  however  large  additions  from 
his  own  enquiries,  especially  in  the  Flemish  and  Breton  campaigns 


376  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


and  in  the  account  of  Crecj.  Froissart  was  himself  a  Hainaulter 
of  Valenciennes ;  he  held  a  post  in  Queen  Philippa's  household 
from  1361  to  1369,  and  under  this  influence  produced  in  1373  the 
first  edition  of  his  well-known  Chronicle.  A  later  edition  is  far 
less  English  in  tone,  and  a  third  version,  begun  by  him  in  his  old  age 
after  long  absence  from  England,  is  distinctly  French  in  its  sympathies. 
Froissart's  vivacity  and  picturesqueness  blind  us  to  the  inaccuracy  of 
his  details  ;  as  an  historical  authority  he  is  of  little  value.  The 
"Fasciculi  Zizanioruin"  in  the  Rolls  Series  with  the  documents 
appended  to  it  is  a  work  of  primary  authority  for  the  history  of  Wyclii 
and  his  followers  :  a  selection  from  his  English  tracts  has  been  made  by 
Mr.  T.  Arnold  for  the  University  of  Oxford,  which  has  also  published 
his  "  Trias."  The  version  of  the  Bible  that  bears  his  name  has  been 
edited  with  a  valuable  preface  by  the  Rev.  J,  Forshall  and  Sir  F. 
Madden.  William  Longland's  poem,  "  The  Complaint  of  Piers  the 
Ploughman  "  (edited  by  Mr.  Skeat  for  the  Early  English  Text  Society) 
throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the  social  state  of  England  after  the  Treaty 
of  Bretigny. 

The  "  Annals  of  Richard  the  Second  and  Henry  the  Fourth," 
now  published  by  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  are  our  main  authority  for 
the  period  which  follows  Edward's  death.  They  serve  as  the  basis 
of  the  St.  Alban's  compilation  which  bears  the  name  of  Walsingham, 
and  from  which  the  "  Life  of  Richard,"  by  a  monk  of  Evesham  is 
for  the  most  part  derived.  The  sams  violent  Lancastrian  sympathy 
runs  through  Walsingham  and  the  fifth  book  of  Knyghton's  Chronicle. 
The  French  authorities  on  the  other  hand  are  vehemently  on  Richard's 
side.  Froissart,  who  ends  at  this  time,  is  supplemented  by  the 
metrical  history  of  Creton  ("  Archseologia,"  vol.  xx.),  and  by  the 
"  Chronique  de  la  Traison  et  Mort  de  Richart  "  (English  Historical 
Society),  both  works  of  French  authors  and  published  in  France  in  the 
time  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  probably  with  the  aim  of  arousing  French 
feeling  against  the  House  of  Lancaster  and  the  war-policy  which  it 
had  revived.  The  popular  feeling  in  England  may  be  seen  in 
"  Political  Songs  from  Ed  ward  III.  to  Richard  III."  (Rolls  Series).  A 
poem  on  "  The  Deposition  of  Richard  II."  which  has  been  published 
by  the  Camden  Society  is  now  ascribed  to  William  Longland. 

With  Henry  the  Fifth  our  historic  materials  become  more  abundant. 
We  have  the  "  Acta  Henrici  Quinti"  by  Titus  Livius,  a  chaplain  in 
the  royal  army;  a  life  by  Elmham,  prior  of  Lenton,  simpler  in  style 
but  identical  in  arrangement  and  facts  with  the  former  work  ;  a 
biography  by  Robert  Redman  ;  a  metrical  chronicle  by  Elmham 
(published  in  Rolls  Series  in  "  Memorials  of  Henry  the  Fifth ") ; 
and  the  meagre  chronicles  of  Hardyng  and  Otterbourne.  The  King's 
Norman  campaigns  may  be  studied  in  M.  Puiseux's  '"'Siege  de 
Rouen"  (Caen,  1867).  The  "Wars  of  the  English  in  France  "and 
Blondel's  work  "  De  Reductione  Normannise  "  (both  in  Rolls  Series) 
give  ample  information  on  the  military  side  of  this  and  the  next  reign. 
But  with  the  accession  of  Henry  the  Sixth  we  again  enter  on  a 
period  of  singular  dearth  in  its  historical  authorities.  The  "  Proces  de 
Jeanne  d  Arc  "  (published  by  the  Soci6te"  de  1'Histoire  de  France)  is 
the  only  real  authority  for  her  history.  For  English  affairs  we  are 
reduced  to  the  meagre  accounts  of  William  of  Worcester,  of  the 


AUTHORITIES.  377 


Continuator  of  the  Crowland  Chronicle,  and  of  Fabyan.  Fabyan  is  a 
London  alderman  with  a  strong  bias  in  favour  of  the  House  of  Lancaster, 
and  his  work  is  useful  for  London  only.  The  Continuator  is  one  of 
the  best  of  his  class  ;  and  though  connected  with  the  house  of  York, 
the  date  of  his  work,  which  appeared  soon  after  Bosworth  Field, 
makes  him  fairly  impartial ;  but  he  is  sketchy  and  deficient  in 
information.  The  more  copious  narrative  of  Polydore  Vergil  is  far 
superior  to  these  in  literary  ability,  but  of  later  date,  and  strongly 
Lancastrian  in  tone.  For  the  struggle  between  Edward  and  Warwick, 
the  valuable  narrative  of  "The  Arrival  of  Edward  the  Fourth" 
(Camden  Society)  may  be  taken  as  the  official  account  on  the  royal 
side.  The  Paston  Letters  are  the  first  instance  in  English  history 
of  a  family  correspondence,  and  throw  great  light  on  the  social 
condition  of  the  tims. 


CHAPTER    I. 

EDWARD  II. 
1307—1327. 

IN  his  calling  together  the  estates  of  the  realm  Edward    Parlia- 
the  First  determined  the  course  of  English  history.     From  |5*^L. 
the  first  moment  of  its  appearance  the  Parliament  became 
the  centre  of  English  affairs.     The  hundred  years  indeed 
which  follow  its  assembly  at  Westminster  saw  its  rise 
into  a  power  which  checked  and  overawed  the  Crown. 

Of  the  Kings  in  whose  reigns  the  Parliament  gathered 
this  mighty  strength  not  one  was  likely  to  look  with 
indifference  on  the  growth  of  a  rival  authority,  and  the 
bulk  of  them  were  men  who  in  other  times  would  have 
roughly  checked  it.  What  held  their  hand  was  the  need 
of  the  Crown.  The  century  and  a  half  that  followed  the 
gathering  of  the  estates  at  Westminster  was  a  time  of 
almost  continual  war,  and  of  the  financial  pressure  that 
springs  from  war.  It  was  indeed  war  that  had  gathered 
them.  In  calling  his  Parliament  Edward  the  First  sought 
mainly  an  effective  means  of  procuring  supplies  for  that 
policy  of  national  consolidation  which  had  triumphed  in 
Wales  and  which  seemed  to  be  triumphing  in  Scotland. 
But  the  triumph  in  Scotland  soon  proved  a  delusive  one, 
and  the  strife  brought  wider  strifes  in  its  train.  When 
Edward  wrung  from  Balliol  an  acknowledgement  of  his 
suzerainty  he  foresaw  little  of  the  war  with  France,  the 
war  with  Spain,  the  quarrel  with  the  Papacy,  the  up- 
growth of  social,  of  political,  of  religious  revolution  within 


380  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  England  itself,  of  which  that  acknowledgement  was  to  be 
Edward  the  prelude.  But  the  thicker  troubles  gathered  round 
Second.  England  the  more  the  royal  treasury  was  drained,  and 
13O7-  now  that  arbitrary  taxation  was  impossible  the  one  means 
13a7'  of  filling  it  lay  in  a  summons  of  the  Houses.  The  Crown 
was  chained  to  the  Parliament  by  a  tie  of  absolute  need. 
From  the  first  moment  of  parliamentary  existence  the 
life  and  power  of  the  estates  assembled  at  "Westminster 
hung  on  the  question  of  supplies.  So  long  as  war  went 
on  no  ruler  could  dispense  with  the  grants  which  fed  the 
war  and  which  Parliament  alone  could  afford.  But  it 
was  impossible  to  procure  supplies  save  by  redressing  the 
grievances  of  which  Parliament  complained  and  by  grant- 
ing the  powers  which  Parliament  demanded.  It  was  in 
vain  that  King  after  King,  conscious  that  war  bound  them 
to  the  Parliament,  strove  to  rid  themselves  of  the  war. 
So  far  was  the  ambition  of  our  rulers  from  being  the  cause 
of  the  long  struggle  that,  save  in  the  one  case  of  Henry 
the  Fifth,  the  desperate  effort  of  every  ruler  was  to  arrive  at 
peace.  Forced  as  they  were  to  fight,  their  restless  diplomacy 
strove  to  draw  from  victory  as  from  defeat  a  means  of 
escape  from  the  strife  that  was  enslaving  the  Crown.  The 
royal  Council,  the  royal  favourites,  were  always  on  the 
side  of  peace.  But  fortunately  for  English  freedom  peace 
was  impossible.  The  pride  of  the  English  people,  the 
greed  of  France,  foiled  every  attempt  at  accommodation. 
The  wisest  ministers  sacrificed  themselves  in  vain.  King 
after  King  patched  up  truces  which  never  grew  into 
treaties,  and  concluded  marriages  which  brought  fresh 
discord  instead  of  peace.  War  went  ceaselessly  on,  and 
with  the  march  of  war  went  on  the  ceaseless  growth  of 
the  Parliament. 

Robert         The   death   of  Edward  the   First  arrested   only  for  a 

Bruce,      moment  the  advance  of  his  army  to  the  north.     The  Earl 

of  Pembroke  led  it  across  the  border,  and  found  himself 

master  of  the  country  without  a  blow.     Bruce's  career 

became   that  of  a  desperate   adventurer,   for  even    the 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


381 


CHAP.  I. 

Edward 

the 
Second. 

1307- 
1327. 


Highland  chiefs  in  whose  fastnesses  he  found  shelter  were 
bitterly  hostile  to  one  who  claimed  to  be  King  of  their 
foes  in  the  Lowlands.  It  was  this  adversity  that  trans- 
formed the  murderer  of  Comyn  into  the  noble  leader  of  a 
nation's  cause.  Strong  and  of  commanding  presence, 
brave  and  genial  in  temper,  Bruce  bore  the  hardships  of 
his  career  with  a  courage  and  hopefulness  that  never 
failed.  In  the  legends  that  clustered  round  his  name  we 
see  him  listening  in  Highland  glens  to  the  bay  of  the 
bloodhounds  on  his  track,  or  holding  a  pass  single-handed 
against  a  crowd  of  savage  clansmen.  Sometimes  the 
small  band  which  clung  to  him  were  forced  to  support 
themselves  by  hunting  and  fishing,  sometimes  to  break 
up  for  safety  as  their  enemies  tracked  them  to  their  lair- 
Bruce  himself  had  more  than  once  to  fling  off  his  coat- 
of-mail  and  scramble  barefoot  for  very  life  up  the  crags. 
Little  by  little  however  the  dark  sky  cleared.  The 
English  pressure  relaxed.  James  Douglas,  the  darling  of 
Scottish  story,  was  the  first  of  the  Lowland  Barons  to  rally 
to  the  Bruce,  and  his  daring  gave  heart  to  the  King's 
cause.  Once  he  surprized  his  own  house,  which  had 
been  given  to  an  Englishman,  ate  the  dinner  which  was 
prepared  for  its  new  owner,  slew  his  captives,  and  tossed 
their  bodies  on  to  a  pile  of  wood  at  the  castle  gate.  Then 
he  staved  in  the  wine-vats  that  the  wine  might  mingle 
with  their  blood,  and  set  house  and  wood-pile  on  fire. 

A  ferocity  like  this  degraded  everywhere  the  work  of  Edward 
freedom  ;  but  the  revival  of  the  country  went  steadily  on. 
Pembroke  and  the  English  forces  were  in  fact  paralyzed 
by  a  strife  which  had  broken  out  in  England  between 
the  new  King  and  his  baronage.  The  moral  purpose 
which  had  raised  his  father  to  grandeur  was  wholly  want- 
ing in  Edward  the  Second;  he  was  showy,  idle,  and 
stubborn  in  temper  ;  but  he  was  far  from  being  destitute 
of  the  intellectual  quickness  which  seemed  inborn  in 
the  Plantagenets.  He  had  no  love  for  his  father,  but  he 
had  seen  him  in  the  later  years  of  his  reign  struggling 


382  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  against  the  pressure  of  the  baronage,  evading  his  pledges  as 
Edward  to  taxation,  and  procuring  absolution  from  his  promise  to 
Smmd.  observe  the  clauses  added  to  the  Charter.  The  son's  purpose 
1307-  was  the  same,  that  of  throwing  off  what  he  looked  on  as 
1327.  ^e  voke  Of  the  baronage ;  but  the  means  by  which  he 
designed  to  bring  about  his  purpose  was  the  choice  of  a 
minister  wholly  dependent  on  the  Crown.  We  have  already 
noticed  the  change  by  which  the  "  clerks  of  the  King's 
chapel,"  who  had  been  the  ministers  of  arbitrary  govern- 
ment under  the  Norman  and  Angevin  sovereigns,  had  been 
quietly  superseded  by  the  prelates  and  lords  of  the  Con- 
tinual Council.  At  the  close  of  the  late  reign  a  direct 
demand  on  the  part  of  the  barons  to  nominate  the  great 
officers  of  state  had  been  curtly  rejected ;  but  the  royal  choice 
had  been  practically  limited  in  the  selection  of  its  ministers 
to  the  class  of  prelates  and  nobles,  and  however  closely  con- 
nected with  royalty  they  might  be  such  officers  always  to 
a  great  extent  shared  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  their 
order.  The  aim  of  the  young  King  seems  to  have  been  to 
undo  the  change  which  had  been  silently  brought  about, 
and  to  imitate  the  policy  of  the  contemporary  sovereigns 
of  France  by  choosing  as  his  ministers  men  of  an  inferior 
position,  wholly  dependent  on  the  Crown  for  their  power, 
and  representatives  of  nothing  but  the  policy  and  interests 
of  their  master.  Piers  Gaveston,  a  foreigner  sprung  from 
a  family  of  Guienne,  had  been  his  friend  and  companion 
during  his  father's  reign,  at  the  close  of  which  he  had 
been  banished  from  the  realm  for  his  share  in  intrigues 
which  divided  Edward  from  his  son.  At  the  accession  of 
the  new  king  he  was  at  once  recalled,  created  Earl  of 
Cornwall,  and  placed  at  the  head,  of  the  administration 
When  Edward  crossed  the  sea  to  wed  Isabella  of  France, 
the  daughter  of  Philip  the  Fair,  a  marriage  planned  by  his 
father  to  provide  against  any  further  intervention  of  France 
in  his  difficulties  with  Scotland,  the  new  minister  was  left 
as  Ptegent  in  his  room.  The  offence  given  by  this  rapid 
promotion  was  embittered  by  his  personal  temper.  Gay, 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  383 

genial,  thriftless,  Gaveston  showed  in  his  first  acts  the    CHAP.  I. 
quickness   and   audacity  of   Southern    Gaul.     The   older    Edward 
ministers  were  dismissed,  all  claims  of  precedence  or  in-     second 
heritance  were  set  aside  in  the  distribution  of  offices  at  the      1307- 
coronation,  while  taunts  and  defiances  goaded  the  proud      13a.7' 
baronage  to  fury.     The  favourite  was  a  fine  soldier,  and 
his  lance  unhorsed  his  opponents  in  tourney  after  tourney. 
His   reckless  wit  flung  nicknames  about  the  Court,  the 
Earl  of  Lancaster  was  "  the  Actor,"  Pembroke  "  the  Jew," 
Warwick  "  the  Black  Bog."     But  taunt  and  defiance  broke 
helplessly  against  the  iron  mass  of  the  baronage.     After  a 
few  months  of  power  the  formal  demand  of  the  Parlia- 
ment for  his  dismissal  could  not  be  resisted,  and  in  May, 
1308,  Gaveston  was  formally  banished  from  the  realm. 

But  Edward  was  far  from  abandoning  his  favourite.  Thomas 
In  Ireland  he  was  unfettered  by  the  Baronage,  and  here  °f 
Gaveston  found  a  refuge  as  the  King's  Lieutenant  while 
Edward  sought  to  obtain  his  recall  by  the  intervention  of 
France  and  the  Papacy.  But  the  financial  pressure  of  the 
Scotch  war  again  brought  the  King  and  his  Parliament 
together  in  the  spring  of  1309.  It  was  only  by  con- 
ceding the  rights  which  his  father  had  sought  to  estab- 
lish of  imposing  import  duties  on  the  merchants  by  their 
own  assent  that  he  procured  a  subsidy.  The  firmness 
of  the  baronage  sprang  from  their  having  found  a  head. 
In  no  point  had  the  policy  of  Henry  the  Third  more 
utterly  broken  down  than  in  his  attempt  to  weaken  the 
power  of  the  nobles  by  filling  the  great  earldoms  with 
kinsmen  of  the  royal  house.  He  had  made  Simon  of 
Montfort  his  brother-in-law  only  to  furnish  a  leader  to 
the  nation  in  the  Barons'  war.  In  loading  his  second 
son,  Edmund  Crouchback,  with  honours  and  estates  he 
raised  a  family  to  greatness  which  overawed  the  Crown. 
Edmund  had  been  created  Earl  of  Lancaster;  after  Evesham 
he  had  received  the  forfeited  Earldom  of  Leicester;  he 
had  been  made  Earl  of  Derby  on  the  extinction  of  tho 
house  of  Ferrers.  His  son,  Thomas  of  Lancaster, 


384 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1307- 
1327. 


CHAP.  I.  the  son-in-law  of  Henry  de  Lacy,  and  was  soon  to  add 
Edward  to  these  lordships  the  Earldom  of  Lincoln.  And  to  the 
Second  weight  of  these  great  baronies  was  added  his  royal  blood. 
The  father  of  Thomas  had  been  a  titular  King  of 
Sicily.  His  mother  was  dowager  Queen  of  Navarre. 
His  half  sister  by  the  mother's  side  was  wife  of  the 
French  King  Philip  le  Bel  and  mother  of  the  English 
Queen  Isabella.  He  was  himself  a  grandson  of  Henry 
the  Third  and  not  far  from  the  succession  to  the  throne. 
Had  Earl  Thomas  been  a  wiser  and  a  nobler  man,  his 
adhesion  to  the  cause  of  the  baronage  might  have  guided 
the  King  into  a  really  national  policy.  As  it  was  his 
weight  proved  irresistible.  When  Edward  at  the  close  of 
the  Parliament  recalled  Gaveston  the  Earl  of  Lancaster 
withdrew  from  the  royal  Council,  and  a  Parliament  which 
met  in  the  spring  of  1310  resolved  that  the  affairs  of  the 
realm  should  be  entrusted  for  a  year  to  a  body  of  twenty- 
one  "Ordainers"  with  Archbishop  Winchelsey  at  their 
head. 

Edward  with  Gaveston  withdrew  sullenly  to  the  North. 
A  triumph  in  Scotland  would  have  given  him  strength  to 
baffle  the  Ordainers,  but  he  had  little  of  his  father's 
military  skill,  the  wasted  country  made  it  hard  to  keep 
an  army  together,  and  after  a  fruitless  campaign  he  fell 
back  to  his  southern  realm  to  meet  the  Parliament  of 
1311  and  the  "Ordinances"  which  the  twenty-one  laid 
before  it.  By  this  long  and  important  statute  Gaveston 
was  banished,  other  advisers  were  driven  from  the  Council, 
and  the  Florentine  bankers  whose  loans  had  enabled 
Edward  to  hold  the  baronage  at  bay  sent  out  of  the 
realm.  The  customs  duties  imposed  by  Edward  the  First 
were  declared  to  be  illegal.  Its  administrative  provisions 
showed  the  relations  which  the  barons  sought  to  establish 
between  the  new  Parliament  and  the  Crown.  Parliaments 
were  to  be  called  every  year,  and  in  these  assemblies  the 
King's  servants  were  to  be  brought,  if  need  were,  to 
justice.  The  great  officers  of  state  were  to  be  appointed 


Edward 

and  the 

Ordainers 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


385 


Edward 

the 
Second. 

1307- 
1327. 


with  the  counsel  and  consent  of  the  baronage,  and  to  be  CHAP.  I. 
sworn  in  Parliament.  The  same  consent  of  the  barons  in 
Parliament  was  to  be  needful  ere  the  King  could  declare 
war  or  absent  himself  from  the  realm.  As  the  Ordinances 
show,  the  baronage  still  looked  on  Parliament  rather  as  a 
political  organization  of  the  nobles  than  as  a  gathering  of 
the  three  Estates  of  the  realm.  The  lower  clergy  pass 
unnoticed;  the  Commons  are  regarded  as  mere  tax- 
payers whose  part  was  still  confined  to  the  presentation 
of  petitions  of  grievances  and  the  grant  of  money.  But 
even  in  this  imperfect  fashion  the  Parliament  was  a  real 
representation  of  the  country.  The  barons  no  longer 
depended  for  their  force  on  the  rise  of  some  active  leader, 
or  gathered  in  exceptional  assemblies  to  wrest  reforms 
from  the  Crown  by  threat  of  war.  Their  action  was  made 
regular  and  legal.  Even  if  the  Commons  took  little  part 
in  forming  decisions,  their  force  when  formed  hung  on  the 
assent  of  the  knights  and  burgesses  to  them;  and  the 
grant  which  alone  could  purchase  from  the  Crown  the 
concessions  which  the  Baronage  demanded  lay  absolutely 
within  the  control  of  the  Third  Estate.  It  was  this  which 
made  the  King's  struggles  so  fruitless.  He  assented  to 
the  Ordinances,  and  then  withdrawing  to  the  North  re- 
called Gaveston  and  annulled  them.  But  Winchelsey 
excommunicated  the  favourite  and  the  barons,  gathering 
in  arms,  besieged  him  in  Scarborough.  His  surrender  in 
May  1312  ended  the  strife.  The  "Black  Dog"  of 
Warwick  had  sworn  that  the  favourite  should  feel  his 
teeth ;  and  Gaveston  flung  himself  in  vain  at  the  feet  of 
the  Earl  of  Lancaster,  praying  for  pity  "  from  his  gentle 
lord."  In  defiance  of  the  terms  of  his  capitulation  he  was 
beheaded  on  Blacklow  Hill. 

The  King's  burst  of  grief  was  as  fruitless  as  his  threats  Bannock- 
of  vengeance ;   a   feigned   submission  of  the  conquerors 
completed  the  royal  humiliation,  and  the   barons  knelt 
before  Edward  in  Westminster  Hall  to  receive  a  pardon 
which  seemed  the  deathblow  of  the  royal  power.     But  if 


burn. 


386  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  Edward  was  powerless  to  conquer  the  baronage  he  could  still 
Edward  by  evading  the  observances  of  the  Ordinances  throw  the 
Second  whole  realm  into  confusion.  The  two  years  that  follow 
1307-  Gaveston's  death  are  among  the  darkest  in  our  history.  A 
1327.  terrible  succession  of  famines  intensified  the  suffering 
which  sprang  from  the  utter  absence  of  all  rule  as  dis- 
sension raged  between  the  barons  and  the  King.  At  last 
a  common  peril  drew  both  parties  together.  The  Scots 
had  profited  by  the  English  troubles,  and  Bruce's  "  harry- 
ing of  Buchan "  after  his  defeat  of  its  Earl,  who  had 
joined  the  English  army,  fairly  turned  the  tide  of  success 
in  his  favour.  Edinburgh,  Roxburgh,  Perth,  and  most  of 
the  Scotch  fortresses  fell  one  by  one  into  King  Eobert's 
hands.  The  clergy  met  in  council  and  owned  him  as 
their  lawful  lord.  Gradually  the  Scotch  barons  who  still 
held  to  the  English  cause  were  coerced  into  submission, 
and  Bruce  found  himself  strong  enough  to  invest  Stirling, 
the  last  and  the  most  important  of  the  Scotch  fortresses 
which  held  out  for  Edward.  Stirling  was  in  fact  the  key 
of  Scotland,  and  its  danger  roused  England  out  of  its 
civil  strife  to  an  effort  for  the  recovery  of  its  prey.  At 
the  close  of  1313  Edward  recognized  the  Ordinances,  and 
a  liberal  grant  from  the  Parliament  enabled  him  to  take 
the  field.  Lancaster  indeed  still  held  aloof  on  the  ground 
that  the  King  had  not  sought  the  assent  of  Parliament  to 
the  war,  but  thirty  thousand  men  followed  Edward  to  the 
North,  and  a  host  of  wild  marauders  were  summoned 
from  Ireland  and  Wales.  The  army  which  Bruce  gathered 
to  oppose  this  inroad  was  formed  almost  wholly  of  foot- 
men, and  was  stationed  to  the  south  of  Stirling  on  a  rising 
ground  flanked  by  a  little  brook,  the  Bannockburn,  which 
gave  its  name  to  the  engagement.  The  battle  took  place  on 
the  twenty-fourth  of  June  1314.  Again  two  systems  of 
warfare  were  brought  face  to  face  as  they  had  been  brought 
at  Ealkirk,  for  Robert  like  Wallace  drew  up  his  forces  in 
hollow  squares  or  circles  of  spearmen.  The  English  were 
dispirited  at  the  very  outset  by  the  failure  of  an  attempt 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


387 


Edward 

the 
Second. 

1307- 
1327. 


to  relieve  Stirling  and  by  the  issue  of  a  single  combat  CHAP.  I. 
between  Bruce  and  Henry  de  Boliun,  a  knight  who  bore 
down  upon  him  as  he  was  riding  peacefully  along  the 
front  of  his  army.  Robert  was  mounted  on  a  small 
hackney  and  held  only  a  light  battle-axe  in  his  hand,  but 
warding  off  his  opponent's  spear  he  cleft  his  skull  with 
so  terrible  a  blow  that  the  handle  of  his  axe  was  shattered 
in  his  grasp.  At  the  opening  of  the  battle  the  English 
archers  were  thrown  forward  to  rake  the  Scottish  squares, 
but  they  were  without  support  and  were  easily  dispersed 
by  a  handful  of  horse  whom  Bruce  held  in  reserve  for 
the  purpose.  The  body  of  men-at-arms  next  flung  them- 
selves on  the  Scottish  front,  but  their  charge  was  embar- 
rassed by  the  narrow  space  along  which  the  line  was 
forced  to  move,  and  the  steady  resistance  of  the  squares 
soon  threw  the  knighthood  into  disorder.  "The  horses 
that  were  stickit,"  says  an  exulting  Scotch  writer,  "  rushed 
and  reeled  right  rudely."  In  the  moment  of  failure  the 
sight  of  a  body  of  camp-followers,  whom  they  mistook 
for  reinforcements  to  the  enemy,  spread  panic  through 
the  English  host.  It  broke  in  a  headlong  rout.  Its 
thousands  of  brilliant  horsemen  were  soon  floundering  in 
pits  which  guarded  the  level  ground  to  Bruce's  left,  or 
riding  in  wild  haste  for  the  border.  Few  however  were 
fortunate  enough  to  reach  it.  Edward  himself,  with  a 
body  of  five  hundred  knights,  succeeded  in  escaping  to 
D unbar  and  the  sea.  But  the  flower  of  his  knighthood 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors,  while  the  Irishry  and 
the  footmen  were  ruthlessly  cut  down  by  the  country 
folk  as  they  fled.  For  centuries  to  come  the  rich  plunder 
of  the  English  camp  left  its  traces  on  the  treasure-rolls 
and  the  vestment-rolls  of  castle  and  abbey  throughout 
the  Lowlands. 

Bannockburn  left  Bruce  the  master  of  Scotland :  but 
terrible  as  the  blow  was  England  could  not  humble  herself  Lanca8ter 
to  relinquish  her  claim  on  the  Scottish  crown.     Edward 
was  eager  indeed  for  a  truce,  but  with  equal  firmness 


Fall  of 


388  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  I.  Bruce  refused  all  negotiation  while  the  royal  title  was 
Edward  withheld  from  him  and  steadily  pushed  on  the  recovery 
cecond  °^  ^s  southern  dominions.  His  progress  was  unhindered. 
1307-  Bannockburn  left  Edward  powerless,  and  Lancaster  at  the 
1827.  head  of  the  Ordainers  became  supreme.  But  it  was  still 
impossible  to  trust  the  King  or  to  act  with  him,  and  in 
the  dead-lock  of  both  parties  the  Scots  plundered  as  they 
would.  Their  ravages  in  the  North  brought  shame  on  Eng- 
land such  as  it  had  never  known.  At  last  Brace's  capture 
of  Berwick  in  the  spring  of  1318  forced  the  King  to  give 
way.  The  Ordinances  were  formally  accepted,  an  amnesty 
granted,  and  a  small  number  of  peers  belonging  to  the 
barons'  party  added  to  the  great  officers  of  state.  Had  a 
statesman  been  at  the  head  of  the  baronage  the  weakness 
of  Edward  might  have  now  been  turned  to  good  purpose. 
But  the  character  of  the  Earl  of  Lancaster  seems  to  have 
fallen  far  beneath  the  greatness  of  his  position.  Dis- 
trustful of  his  cousin,  yet  himself  incapable  of  governing, 
he  stood  sullenly  aloof  from  the  royal  Council  and  the 
royal  armies,  and  Edward  was  able  to  lay  his  failure  in 
recovering  Berwick  during  the  campaign  of  1319  to  the 
Earl's  charge.  His  influence  over  the  country  was  sensibly 
weakened ;  and  in  this  weakness  the  new  advisers  on  whom 
the  King  was  leaning  saw  a  hope  of  destroying  his  power. 
These  were  a  younger  and  elder  Hugh  Le  Despenser, 
son  and  grandson  of  the  Justiciar  who  had  fallen  beside 
Earl  Simon  at  Evesham.  Greedy  and  ambitious  as  they 
may  have  been,  they  were  able  men,  and  their  policy  was 
of  a  higher  stamp  than  the  wilful  defiance  of  Gaveston. 
It  lay,  if  we  may  gather  it  from  the  faint  indications  which 
remain,  in  a  frank  recognition  of  the  power  of  the  three 
Estates  as  opposed  to  the  separate  action  of  the  baronage. 
The  rise  of  the  younger  Hugh,  on  whom  the  King  bestowed 
the  county  of  Glamorgan  with  the  hand  of  one  of  its 
coheiresses,  a  daughter  of  Earl  Gilbert  of  Gloucester,  was 
rapid  enough  to  excite  general  jealousy;  and  in  1321 
Lancaster  found  little  difficulty  in  extorting  by  force  of 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


389 


Edward 

the 
Second. 

13O7- 
1327. 


arms  his  exile  from  the  kingdom.  But  the  tide  of  popular  CHAP.  I. 
sympathy  was  already  wavering,  and  it  was  turned  to  the 
royal  cause  by  aii  insult  offered  to  the  Queen,  against 
whom  Lady  Badlesmere  closed  the  doors  of  Ledes  Castle. 
The  unexpected  energy  shown  by  Edward  in  avenging 
this  insult  gave  fresh  strength  to  his  cause.  At  the 
opening  of  1322  he  found  himself  strong  enough  to  recall 
Despenser,  and  when  Lancaster  convoked  the  baronage  to 
force  him  again  into  exile  the  weakness  of  their  party  was 
shown  by  some  negotiations  into  which  the  Earl  entered 
with  the  Scots  and  by  his  precipitate  retreat  to  the  north 
on  the  advance  of  the  royal  army.  At  Boroughbridge  his 
forces  were  arrested  and  dispersed,  and  Thomas  himself, 
brought  captive  before  Edward  at  Pontefract,  was  tried 
and  condemned  to  death  as  a  traitor.  "  Have  mercy  on 
me,  King  of  Heaven,"  cried  Lancaster,  as,  mounted  on 
a  grey  pony  without  a  bridle,  he  was  hurried  to  execution, 
"  for  my  earthly  King  has  forsaken  me."  His  death  was 
followed,  by  that  of  a  number  of  his  adherents  and  by  the 
captivity  of  others  ;  while  a  Parliament  at  York  annulled 
the  proceedings  against  the  Despeusers  and  repealed  the 
Ordinances. 

It  is  to  this  Parliament  however,  and  perhaps  to  the  vic- 
torious confidence  of  the  royalists,  that  we  owe  the  famous 
provision  which  reveals  the  policy  of  the  Despensers,  the 
provision  that  all  laws  concerning  "  the  estate  of  our  Lord 
the  King  and  his  heirs  or  for  the  estate  of  the  realm  and 
the  people  shall  be  treated,  accorded,  and  established  in 
Parliaments  by  our  Lord  the  King  and  by  the  consent  of 
the  prelates,  earls,  barons,  and  commonalty  of  the  realm 
according  as  hath  been  hitherto  accustomed."  It  wrould 
seem  from  the  tenor  of  this  remarkable  enactment  that 
much  of  the  sudden  revulsion  of  popular  feeling  had  been 
owing  to  the  assumption  of  all  legislative  action  by  the 
baronage  alone.  The  same  policy  was  seen  in  a  reissue 
in  the  form  of  a  royal  Ordinance  of  some  of  the  most 
beneficial  provisions  of  the  Ordinances  which  had  been 

VOL.  I.— 26 


The  De- 
spensers. 


390 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Edward 

the 
Second. 

1307- 
1327. 


CHAP.  I.  formally  repealed.  But  the  arrogance  of  the  Despensers 
gave  new  offence ;  and  the  utter  failure  of  a  fresh  cam- 
paign against  Scotland  again  weakened  the  Crown.  The 
barbarous  forays  in  which  the  borderers  under  Earl 
Douglas  were  wasting  Northumberland  woke  a  general 
indignation ;  and  a  grant  from  the  Parliament  at  York 
enabled  Edward  to  march  with  a  great  army  to  the  North. 
But  Bruce  as  of  old  declined  an  engagement  till  the  wasted 
Lowlands  starved  the  invaders  into  a  ruinous  retreat. 
The  failure  forced  England  in  the  spring  of  1323  to  stoop 
to  a  truce  for  thirteen  years,  in  the  negotiation  of  which 
Bruce  was  suffered  to  take  the  royal  title.  We  see  in  this 
act  of  the  Despensers  the  first  of  a  series  of  such  attempts 
by  which  minister  after  minister  strove  to  free  the  Crown 
from  the  bondage  under  which  the  war- pressure  laid  it 
to  the  growing  power  of  Parliament ;  but  it  ended  as 
these  after  attempts  ended  only  in  the  ruin  of  the  coun- 
sellors who  planned  it.  The  pride  of  the  country  had 
been  roused  by  the  struggle,  and  the  humiliation  of  such 
a  truce  robbed  the  Crown  of  its  temporary  popularity. 
It  led  the  way  to  the  sudden  catastrophe  which  closed 
this  disastrous  reign. 

Isabella.  In  his  struggle  with  the  Scots  Edward,  like  his 
father,  had  been  hampered  not  only  by  internal  divi- 
sions but  by  the  harassing  intervention  of  France.  The 
rising  under  Bruce  had  been  backed  by  French  aid  as 
well  as  by  a  revival  of  the  old  quarrel  over  Guienne, 
and  on  the  accession  of  Charles  the  Fourth  in  1322 
a  demand  of  homage  for  Ponthieu  and  Gascony  called 
Edward  over  sea.  But  the  Despensers  dared  not  let 
him  quit  the  realm,  and  a  fresh  dispute  as  to  the  right 
of  possession  in  the  Agenois  brought  about  the  seizure 
of  the  bulk  of  Gascony  by  a  sudden  attack  on  the 
part  of  the  French.  The  quarrel  verged  upon  open  war, 
and  to  close  it  Edward's  Queen,  Isabella,  a  sister  of  the 
French  King,  undertook  in  1325  to  revisit  her  home  and 
bring  about  a  treaty  of  peace  between  the  two  countries. 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


391 


Isabella  hated  the  Despensers;  she  was  alienated  from 
her  husband ;  but  hatred  and  alienation  were  as  yet 
jealously  concealed.  At  the  close  of  the  year  the  terms 
of  peace  seemed  to  be  arranged ;  and  though  declining  to 
cross  the  sea,  Edward  evaded  the  difficulty  created  by  the 
demand  for  personal  homage  by  investing  his  son  with  the 
Duchies  of  Aquitaine  and  Gascony,  and  despatching  him 
to  join  his  mother  at  Paris.  The  boy  did  homage  to 
King  Charles  for  the  two  Duchies,  the  question  of  the 
Agenois  being  reserved  for  legal  decision,  and  Edward 
at  once  recalled  his  wife  and  son  to  England.  Neither 
threats  nor  prayers  however  could  induce  either  wife 
or  child  to  return  to  his  court.  Eoger  Mortimer,  the 
most  powerful  of  the  Marcher  barons  and  a  deadly 
foe  to  the  Despensers,  had  taken  refuge  in  France;  and 
his  influence  over  the  Queen  made  her  the  centre  of 
a  vast  conspiracy.  With  the  young  Edward  in  her 
hands  she  was  able  to  procure  soldiers  from  the  Count  of 
Hainault  by  promising  her  son's  hand  to  his  daughter; 
the  Italian  bankers  supplied  funds ;  and  after  a  year's  pre- 
paration the  Queen  set  sail  in  the  autumn  of  1326.  A 
secret  conspiracy  of  the  baronage  was  revealed  when  the 
primate  and  nobles  hurried  to  her  standard  on  her  landing 
at  Orwell.  Deserted  by  all  and  repulsed  by  the  citizens 
of  London  whose  aid  he  implored,  the  King  fled  hastily 
to  the  west  and  embarked  with  the  Despensers  for  Lundy 
Island,  which  Despenser  had  fortified  as  a  possible  refuge  ; 
but  contrary  winds  flung  him  again  on  the  Welsh  coast, 
where  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  Earl  Henry  of  Lancaster, 
the  brother  of  the  Earl  whom  they  had  slain.  The 
younger  Despenser,  who  accompanied  him,  was  at  once 
hung  on  a  gibbet  fifty  feet  high,  and  the  King  placed  in 
ward  at  Kenilworth  till  his  fate  could  be  decided  by  a 
Parliament  summoned  for  that  purpose  at  Westminster 
in  January  1327. 

The   peers  who  assembled  fearlessly  revived  the  con- 
stitutional usage    of   the  earlier  English   freedom,  and 


CHAP.  I. 

Edward 

the 
Second 

1307- 
1327 


Deposi- 
tion of 
Edward 


392  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.     [BOOK  iv. 


CHAP.  I.  asserted  their  right  to  depose  a  King  who  had  proved 
Edward  himself  unworthy  to  rule.  Not  a  voice  was  raised  in 
Second.  Edward's  behalf,  and  only  four  prelates  protested  when 
1307-  the  young  Prince  was  proclaimed  King  by  acclama- 
1327.  ^on  an(j  presented  as  their  sovereign  to  the  multitudes 
without.  The  revolution  took  legal  form  in  a  bill  which 
charged  the  captive  monarch  with  indolence,  incapacity, 
the  loss  of  Scotland,  the  violation  of  his  coronation  oath 
and  oppression  of  the  Church  and  baronage ;  and  on  the 
approval  of  this  it  was  resolved  that  the  reign  of  Edward 
of  Caernarvon  had  ceased  and  that  the  crown  had  passed 
to  his  son,  Edward  of  Windsor.  A  deputation  of  the 
Parliament  proceeded  to  Kenilworth  to  procure  the  assent 
of  the  discrowned  King  to  his  own  deposition,  and  Edward 
"  clad  in  a  plain  black  gown  "  bowed  quietly  to  his  fate. 
Sir  William  Trussel  at  once  addressed  him  in  words  which 
better  than  any  other  mark  the  nature  of  the  step  which 
the  Parliament  had  taken.  "I,  William  Trussel,  proctor 
of  the  earls,  barons,  and  others,  having  for  this  full  and 
sufficient  power,  do  render  and  give  back  to  you,  Edward, 
once  King  of  England,  the  homage  and  fealty  of  the 
persons  named  in  my  procuracy ;  and  acquit  and  dis- 
charge them  thereof  in  the  best  manner  that  law  and 
custom  will  give.  And  I  now  make  protestation  in  their 
name  that  they  will  no  longer  be  in  your  fealty  and 
allegiance,  nor  claim  to  hold  anything  of  you  as  king, 
but  will  account  you  hereafter  as  a  private  person,  without 
any  manner  of  royal  dignity."  A  significant  act  followed 
these  emphatic  words.  Sir  Thomas  Blount,  the  steward  of 
the  household,  broke  his  staff  of  office,  a  ceremony  used 
only  at  a  king's  death,  and  declared  that  all  persons 
engaged  in  the  royal  service  were  discharged.  The  act 
of  Blount  was  only  an  omen  of  the  fate  which  awaited 
the  miserable  King.  In  the  following  September  he  was 
murdered  in  Berkeley  Castle. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EDWARD  THE  THIRD. 

1327—1347. 

THE  deposition  of  Edward  the  Second  proclaimed  to  the  Estate  of 
world  the  power  which  the  English  Parliament  had  gained.  „  i 
In  thirty  years  from  their  first  assembly  at  Westminster 
the  Estates  had  wrested  from  the  Crown  the  last  relic  of 
arbitrary  taxation,  had  forced  on  it  new  ministers  and 
a  new  system  of  government,  had  claimed  a  right  of 
confirming  the  choice  of  its  councillors  and  of  punishing 
their  misconduct,  and  had  established  the  principle  that 
redress  of  grievances  precedes  a  grant  of  supply.  Nor 
had  the  time  been  less  important  in  the  internal  growth 
of  Parliament.  Step  by  step  the  practical  sense  of  the 
Houses  themselves  completed  the  work  of  Edward  by 
bringing  about  change  after  change  in  its  composition. 
The  very  division  into  a  House  of  Lords  and  a  House  of 
Commons  formed  no  part  of  the  original  plan  of  Edward 
the  First;  in  the  earlier  Parliaments  each  of  the  four 
orders  of  clergy,  barons,  knights,  and  burgesses  met, 
deliberated,  and  made  their  grants  apart  from  each  other. 
This  isolation  however  of  the  Estates  soon  showed  signs 
of  breaking  down.  Though  the  clergy  held  steadily  aloof 
from  any  real  union  with  its  fellow-orders,  the  knights  of 
the  shire  were  drawn  by  the  similarity  of  their  social 
position  into  a  close  connexion  with  the  lords.  They 
seem  in  fact  to  have  been  soon  admitted  by  the  baronage 


394 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1327- 
13*7. 


CHAP.  II.  to  an  almost  equal  position  with  themselves,  whether  as 
Edward  legislators  or  counsellors  of  the  Crown.  The  burgesses  on 
the  Third.  tjie  Other  hand  took  little  part  at  first  in  Parliamentary 
proceedings,  save  in  those  which  related  to  the  taxation 
of  their  class.  But  their  position  was  raised  by  the  strifes 
of  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Second  when  their  aid  was 
needed  by  the  baronage  in  its  struggle  with  the  Crown ; 
and  their  right  to  share  fully  in  all  legislative  action  was 
asserted  in  the  statute  of  1322.  From  this  moment  no 
proceedings  can  have  been  considered  as  formally  legislative 
save  those  conducted  in  full  Parliament  of  all  the  estates. 
In  subjects  of  public  policy  however  the  barons  were  still 
regarded  as  the  sole  advisers  of  the  Crown,  though  the 
knights  of  the  shire  were  sometimes  consulted  with  them. 
But  the  barons  and  knighthood  were  not  fated  to  be  drawn 
into  a  single  body  whose  weight  would  have  given  an 
aristocratic  impress  to  the  constitution.  Gradually,  through 
causes  with  which  we  are  imperfectly  acquainted,  the  knights 
of  the  shire  drifted  from  their  older  connexion  with  the 
baronage  into  so  close  and  intimate  a  union  with  the 
representatives  of  the  towns  that  at  the  opening  of  the 
reign  of  Edward  the  Third  the  two  orders  are  found 
grouped  formally  together,  under  the  name  of  "The 
Commons."  It  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  importance 
of  this  change.  Had  Parliament  remained  broken  up  into 
its  four  orders  of  clergy,  barons,  knights,  and  citizens,  its 
power  would  have  been  neutralized  at  every  great  crisis  by 
the  jealousies  and  difficulty  of  co-operation  among  its 
component  parts.  A  permanent  union  of  the  knighthood 
and  the  baronage  on  the  other  hand  would  have  converted 
Parliament  into  the  mere  representative  of  an  aristocratic 
caste,  and  would  have  robbed  it  of  the  strength  which  it 
has  drawn  from  its  connexion  with  the  great  body  of  the 
commercial  classes.  The  new  attitude  of  the  knighthood, 
their  social  connexion  as  landed  gentry  with  the  baronage, 
their  political  union  with  the  burgesses,  really  welded  the 
three  orders  into  one,  and  gave  that  unity  of  feeling  and 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307-1461.  395 

action  to  our  Parliament  on  which  its  power  has  ever    CHAP.  II. 
since  mainly  depended,  Edward 

The  weight  of  the  two  Houses  was  seen  in  their  settle-  the_^Lird 
ment  of  the  new  government  by  the  nomination  of  a  1347" 
Council  with  Earl  Henry  of  Lancaster  at  its  head.  The  Scotch 
Council  had  at  once  to  meet  fresh  difficulties  in  the  Xorth.  War. 
The  truce  so  recently  made  ceased  legally  with  Edward's 
deposition ;  and  the  withdrawal  of  his  royal  title  in  further 
offers  of  peace  warned  Bruce  of  the  new  temper  of  the 
English  rulers.  Troops  gathered  on  either  side,  and  the 
English  Council  sought  to  pave  the  way  for  an  attack 
by  dividing  Scotland  against  itself.  Edward  Balliol,  a 
son  of  the  former  King  John,  was  solemnly  received  as  a 
vassal-king  of  Scotland  at  the  English  court.  Robert 
was  disabled  by  leprosy  from  taking  the  field  in  person, 
but  the  insult  roused  him  to  hurl  his  marauders  again 
over  the  border  under  Douglas  and  Sir  Thomas  Randolph. 
The  Scotch  army  has  been  painted  for  us  by  an  eye- 
witness whose  description  is  embodied  in  the  work  of 
Jehan  le  Bel.  "It  consisted  of  four  thousand  men-at- 
arms,  knights,  and  esquires,  well  mounted,  besides  twenty 
thousand  men  bold  and  hardy,  armed  after  the  manner  of 
their  country,  and  mounted  upon  little  hackneys  that  are 
never  tied  up  or  dressed,  but  turned  immediately  after  the 
day's  march  to  pasture  on  the  heath  or  in  the  fields.  .  . 
They  bring  no  carriages  with  them  on  account  of  the 
mountains  they  have  to  pass  in  Northumberland,  neither 
do  they  carry  with  them  any  provisions  of  bread  or  wine, 
for  their  habits  of  sobriety  are  such  in  time  of  war  that 
they  will  live  for  a  long  time  on  flesh  half-sodden  without 
bread,  and  drink  the  river  water  without  wine.  They 
have  therefore  no  occasion  for  pots  or  pans,  for  they 
dress  the  flesh  of  the  cattle  in  their  skins  after  they  have 
flayed  them,  and  being  sure  to  find  plenty  of  them  in 
the  country  which  they  invade  they  carry  none  with 
them.  Under  the  flaps  of  his  saddle  each  man  carries  a 
broad  piece  of  metal,  behind  him  a  little  bag  of  oatmeal : 


396  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAV.  II.  when  they  have  eaten  too  much  of  the  sodden  flesh  and 
Edward  their  stomach  appears  weak  and  empty,  they  set  this 
thejTMrd.  p}ate  over  the  fire,  knead  the  meal  with  water,  and 
1347'  when  the  plate  is  hot  put  a  little  of  the  paste  upon  it 
in  a  thin  cake  like  a  biscuit,  which  they  eat  to  warm 
their  stomachs.  It  is  therefore  no  wonder  that  they 
perform  a  longer  day's  march  than  other  soldiers." 
Though  twenty  thousand  horsemen  and  forty  thousand  foot 
marched  under  their  boy-king  to  protect  the  border,  the 
English  troops  were  utterly  helpless  against  such  a  foe  as 
this.  At  one  time  the  whole  army  lost  its  way  in  the  border 
wastes  :  at  another  all  traces  of  the  enemy  disappeared, 
and  an  offer  of  knighthood  and  a  hundred  marks  was 
made  to  any  who  could  tell  where  the  Scots  were  encamped. 
But  when  they  were  found  their  position  behind  the  Wear 
proved  unassailable,  and  after  a  bold  sally  on.  the  English 
camp  Douglas  foiled  an  attempt  at  intercepting  him  by  a 
clever  retreat.  The  English  levies  broke  hopelessly  up, 
and  a  fresh  foray  into  Northumberland  forced  the  English 
Court  in  1328  to  submit  to  peace.  By  the  treaty  of 
Northampton  which  was  solemnly  confirmed  by  Parlia- 
ment in  September  the  independence  of  Scotland  was  re- 
cognized, and  Eobert  Bruce  owned  as  its  King.  Edward 
formally  abandoned  his  claim  of  feudal  superiority  over 
Scotland;  while  Bruce  promised  to  make  compensation 
for  the  damage  done  in  the  North,  to  marry  his  son  David 
to  Edward's  sister  Joan,  and  to  restore  their  forfeited 
estates  to  those  nobles  who  had  sided  with  the  English 
King. 

Fall  of  But  the  pride  of  England  had  been  too  much  roused 
Mortimer,  by  the  struggle  with  the  Scots  to  bear  this  defeat  easily, 
and  the  first  result  of  the  treaty  of  Northampton  was  the 
overthrow  of  the  government  which  concluded  it.  This 
result  was  hastened  by  the  pride  of  Roger  Mortimer,  who 
was  now  created  Earl  of  March,  and  who  had  made 
himself  supreme  through  his  influence  over  Isabella  and 
his  exclusion  of  the  rest  of  the  nobles  from  all  practical 


iv-l  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  397 

share  in  the  administration  of  the  realm.  The  first  efforts 
to  shake  Roger's  power  were  unsuccessful.  The  Earl 
of  Lancaster  stood,  like  his  brother,  at  the  head  of  the  the_^Lird 
baronage;  the  parliamentary  settlement  at  Edward's  iflj" 
accession  had  placed  him  first  in  the  royal  Council ;  and 
it  was  to  him  that  the  task  of  defying  Mortimer  naturally 
fell.  At  the  close  of  1328  therefore  Earl  Henry  formed 
a  league  with  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  with 
the  young  King's  uncles,  the  Earls  of  Norfolk  and  Kent, 
to  bring  Mortimer  to  account  lor  the  peace  with  Scotland 
and  the  usurpation  of  the  government  as  well  as  for  the 
iate  King's  murder,  a  murder  which  had  been  the  work 
of  his  private  partizans  and  which  had  profoundly 
shocked  the  general  conscience.  But  the  young  King  clave 
firmly  to  his  mother,  the  Earls  of  Norfolk  and  Kent  deserted 
to  Mortimer,  and  powerful  as  it  seemed  the  league  broke 
up  without  result.  A  feeling  of  insecurity  however 
spurred  the  Earl  of  March  to  a  bold  stroke  at  his  op- 
ponents. The  Earl  of  Kent,  who  was  persuaded  that  his 
brother,  Edward  the  Second,  still  lived  a  prisoner  in 
Corfe  Castle,  was  arrested  on  a  charge  of  conspiracy  to 
restore  him  to  the  throne,  tried  before  a  Parliament  filled 
with  Mortimer's  adherents,  and  sent  to  the  block.  But 
the  death  of  a  prince  of  the  royal  blood  roused  the  young 
King  to  resentment  at  the  greed  and  arrogance  of  a 
minister  who  treated  Edward  himself  as  little  more  than 
a  state-prisoner.  A  few  months  after  his  uncle's  execu- 
tion the  King  entered  the  Council  chamber  in  Nott- 
ingham Castle  with  a  force  which  he  had  introduced 
through  a  secret  passage  in  the  rock  on  which  it  stands, 
and  arrested  Mortimer  with  his  own  hands.  A  Parlia- 
ment which  was  at  once  summoned  condemned  the  Earl 
of  March  to  a  traitor's  death,  and  in  November  1330 
he  was  beheaded  at  Tyburn,  while  the  Queen-mother 
was  sent  for  the  rest  of  her  life  into  confinement  at 
Castle  Rising. 

Young   as    he   was,   and    he    had    only    reached    his 


398 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Edward 
and 


CHAP.  II.  eighteenth  year,  Edward  at  once  assumed  the  control  of 
Edward  affairs.  His  first  care  was  to  restore  good  order  through- 
theThird.  oufc  the  country,  which  under  the  late  government  had 
1347^  fallen  into  ruin,  and  to  free  his  hands  by  a  peace  with 
France  for  further  enterprizes  in  the  North.  A  formal 
peace  had  been  concluded  by  Isabella  after  her  husband's 
fall ;  but  the  death  of  Charles  the  Fourth  soon  brought 
about  new  jealousies  between  the  two  courts.  The  three 
sons  of  Philip  the  Fair  had  followed  him  on  the  throne 
in  succession,  but  all  had  now  died  without  male  issue,  and 
Isabella,  as  Philip's  daughter,  claimed  the  crown  for  her  son. 
The  claim  in  any  case  was  a  hard  one  to  make  out.  Though 
her  brothers  had  left  no  sons,  they  had  lefc  daughters,  and 
if  female  succession  were  admitted  these  daughters  of 
Philip's  sons  would  precede  a  son  of  Philip's  daughter. 
Isabella  met  this  difficulty  by  a  contention  that  though 
females  could  transmit  the  right  of  succession  they  could 
not  themselves  possess  it,  and  that  her  son,  as  the  nearest 
living  male  descendant  of  Philip  the  Fair,  and  born  in  the 
lifetime  of  the  King  from  whom  he  claimed,  could  claim  in 
preference  to  females  who  were  related  to  Philip  in  as  near 
a  degree.  But  the  bulk  of  French  jurists  asserted  that  only 
male  succession  gave  right  to  the  French  throne.  On  such 
a  theory  the  right  inheritable  from  Philip  the  Fair  was 
exhausted ;  and  the  crown  passed  to  the  son  of  Philip's 
younger  brother,  Charles  of  Valois,  who  in  fact  peacefully 
mounted  the  throne  as  Philip  the  Fifth.  Purely  formal 
as  the  claim  which  Isabella  advanced  seems  to  have  been, 
it  revived  the  irritation  between  the  two  .courts,  and 
though  Edward's  obedience  to  a  summons  which  Philip 
addressed  to  him  to  do  homage  for  Aquitaine  brought 
about  an  agreement  that  both  parties  should  restore  the 
gains  they  had  made  since  the  last  treaty  the  agreement 
was  never  carried  out.  Fresh  threats  of  war  ended  in 
the  conclusion  of  a  new  treaty  of  peace,,  but  the  question 
whether  liege  or  simple  homage  was  due  for  the  duchies 
remained  unsettled  when  the  fall  of  Mortimer  gave  the 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


399 


young  King  full  mastery  of  affairs.  His  action  was  rapid 
and  decisive.  Clad  as  a  merchant,  and  with  but  fifteen 
horsemen  at  his  back,  Edward  suddenly  made  his  appear- 
ance  in  1331  at  the  French  court  and  did  homage  as  fully 
as  Philip  required.  The  question  of  the  Agenois  remained 
unsettled,  though  the  English  Parliament  insisted  that  its 
decision  should  rest  with  negotiation  and  not  with  war, 
but  on  all  other  points  a  complete  peace  was  made  ;  and 
the  young  King  rode  back  with  his  hands  free  for  an 
attack  which  he  was  planning  on  the  North. 

The  provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  Northampton  for  the 
restitution  of  estates  had  never  been  fully  carried  out. 
Till  this  was  done  the  English  court  held  that  the  rights 
of  feudal  superiority  over  Scotland  which  it  had  yielded 
in  the  treaty  remained  in  force  ;  and  at  this  moment  an 
opening  seemed  to  present  itself  for  again  asserting  these 
rights  with  success.  Fortune  seemed  at  last  to  have  veered 
to  the  English  side.  The  death  of  Robert  Bruce  only  a 
year  after  the  Treaty  of  Northampton  left  the  Scottish 
throne  to  his  son  David,  a  child  of  but  eight  years  old. 
The  death  of  the  King  was  followed  by  the  loss  of  Ean- 
dolph  and  Douglas  ;  and  the  internal  difficulties  of  the 
realm  broke  out  in  civil  strife.  To  the  great  barons  on 
either  side  the  border  the  late  peace  involved  serious  losses, 
for  many  of  the  Scotch  houses  held  large  estates  in  England 
as  many  of  the  English  lords  held  large  estates  in  Scotland, 
and  although  the  treaty  had  provided  for  their  claims  they 
had  in  each  case  been  practically  set  aside.  It  is  this  dis- 
content of  the  barons  at  the  new  settlement  which  explains 
the  sudden  success  of  Edward  Balliol  in  a  snatch  which 
he  made  at  the  Scottish  throne.  Balliol's  design  was 
known  at  the  English  court,  where  he  had  found  shelter  for 
some  years  ;  and  Edward,  whether  sincerely  or  no,  forbad 
his  barons  from  joining  him  and  posted  troops  on  the 
border  to  hinder  his  crossing  it.  But  Balliol  found  little 
difficulty  in  making  his  attack  by  sea.  He  sailed  from 
England  at  the  head  of  a  body  of  nobles  who  claimed 


CHAP.  II. 
Edward 


1347? 


New 
Scotch 
War. 


400 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II.   estates  in  the  north,  landed  in  August  1332  on  the  shores 
Edward     °f  Fife,  and  after  repulsing  with  immense  loss  an  army 


the  Third. 


1327- 
1347. 


which  attacked  him  near  Perth  was  crowned  at  Scone  two 
months  after  his  landing,  wrhile  David  Bruce  fled  helplessly 
to  France.  Edward  had  given  no  open  aid  to  this  enter- 
prize,  but  the  crisis  tempted  his  ambition,  and  he  demanded 
and  obtained  from  Balliolan  acknowledgement  of  the  Eng- 
lish suzerainty.  The  acknowledgement  however  was  fatal 
to  Balliol  himself.  Surprized  at  Annan  by  a  party  of 
Scottish  nobles,  their  sudden  attack  drove  him  in 
December  over  the  border  after  a  reign  of  but  five 
months ;  and  Berwick,  which  he  had  agreed  to  surrender 
to  Edward,  was  strongly  garrisoned  against  an  English 
attack.  The  sudden  breakdown  of  his  vassal-king  left 
Edward  face  to  face  with  a  new  Scotch  war.  The  Parlia- 
ment which  he  summoned  to  advise  on  the  enforcement  of 
his  claim  showed  no  wish  to  plunge  again  into  the  contest 
and  met  him  only  with  evasions  and  delays.  But  Edward 
had  gone  too  far  to  withdraw.  In  March  1333  he  appeared 
before  Berwick,  and  besieged  the  town.  A  Scotch  army 
under  the  regent,  Sir  Archibald  Douglas,  brother  to  the 
famous  Sir  James,  advanced  to  its  relief  in  July  and 
attacked  a  covering  force  which  was  encamped  on  the 
strong  position  of  Halidon  Hill.  The  English  bowmen 
however  vindicated  the  fame  they  had  first  won  at  Falkirk 
and  were  soon  to  crown,  in  the  victory  of  Cre9y.  The 
Scotch  only  struggled  through  the  marsh  which  covered 
the  English  front  to  be  riddled  with  a  storm  of  arrows  and 
to  break  in  utter  rout.  The  battle  decided  the  fate  of 
Berwick.  From  that  time  the  town  has  remained  English 
territory.  It  was  in  fact  the  one  part  of  Edward's  con- 
quests which  was  preserved  in  the  end  by  the  English 
crown.  But  fragment  as  it  was,  it  was  always  viewed 
legally  as  representing  the  realm  of  which  it  once  formed 
a  part.  As  Scotland,  it  had  its  chancellor,  chamberlain, 
and  other  officers  of  State :  and  the  peculiar  heading  of 
Acts  of  Parliament  enacted  for  England  "  and  the  town  of 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


401 


Edward 
the  Third. 

1327- 
13A7. 


Scotland 
freed. 


Benvick-upon-Tweed  "  still  preserves  the  memory  of  its  CH.U-.  II 
peculiar  position.  But  the  victory  did  more  than  give 
Berwick  to  England.  The  defeat  of  Douglas  was  followed 
by  the  submission  of  a  large  part  of  the  Scotch  nobles,  by 
the  flight  of  the  boy-king  David,  and  by  the  return  of 
Balliol  unopposed  to  the  throne.  Edward  exacted  a  heavy 
price  for  his  aid.  All  Scotland  south  of  the  Firth  of  Forth 
was  ceded  to  England,  and  Balliol  did  homage  as  vassal- 
king  for  the  rest. 

It  was  at  the  moment  of  this  submission  that  the  young 
King  reached  the  climax  of  his  success.  A  king  at 
fourteen,  a  father  at  seventeen,  he  had  carried  out  at 
eighteen  a  political  revolution  in  the  overthrow  of 
Mortimer,  and  restored  at  twenty-two  the  ruined  work 
of  his  grandfather.  The  northern  frontier  was  carried  to 
its  old  line  under  the  Northumbrian  kings.  His  kingdom 
within  was  peaceful  and  orderly ;  and  the  strife  with 
France  seemed  at  an  end.  During  the  next  three  years 
Edward  persisted  in  the  line  of  policy  he  had  adopted, 
retaining  his  hold  over  Southern  Scotland,  aiding  his  sub- 
king  Balliol  in  campaign  after  campaign  against  the 
despairing  efforts  of  the  nobles  who  still  adhered  to  the 
house  of  Bruce,  a  party  who  were  now  headed  by  Robert 
the  Steward  of  Scotland  and  by  Earl  Randolph  of  Moray. 
His  perseverance  was  all  but  crowned  with  success,  when 
Scotland  was  again  saved  by  the  intervention  of  France. 
The  successes  of  Edward  roused  anew  the  jealousy  of  the 
French  court.  David  Bruce  found  a  refuge  with  Philip ; 
French  ships  appeared  off  the  Scotch  coast  and  brought  aid 
to  the  patriot  nobles  ;  and  the  old  legal  questions  about  the 
Agenois  and  Aquitaine  were  mooted  afresh  by  the  French 
council.  For  a  time  Edward  staved  off  the  contest  by 
repeated  embassies ;  but  his  refusal  to  accept  Philip  as  a 
mediator  between  England  and  the  Scots  stirred  France  to 
threats  of  war.  In  1335  fleets  gathered  on  its  coast 
descents  were  made  on  the  English  shores  ;  and  troops  and 
galleys  were  hired  in  Italy  and  the  north  for  an  invasion 


402  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  of    England.     The   mere  threat  of    war  saved  Scotland. 

Edward     Edward's  forces  there  were  drawn  to  the  south  to  meet  the 

theTMrd.  }00ked  for  attack  from  across  the  Channel ;  and  the  patriot 

1347"     PartJ  freed  from  their  pressure  at  once  drew  together  again. 

The  actual  declaration  of  war  against  France  at  tlie  close 

of  1337  was  the  knell  of  Balliol's   greatness;   he  found 

himself  without  an  adherent  and  withdrew  two  years  later 

to   the   court    of  Edward,  while  David  returned  to  his 

kingdom  in  1342  and  won  back  the  chief  fastnesses  of  the 

Lowlands.     From  that  moment  the  freedom  of  Scotland 

was   secured.      From   a  war   of    conquest   and   patriotic 

resistance  the  struggle  died  into  a  petty  strife  between 

two  angry  neighbours,  which  became  a  mere  episode  in 

the  larger  contest  which  it  had  stirred  between  England 

o  o 

and  France. 

The  Whether  in  its  national  or  in  its  European  bearings  it  is 

Hundred  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  importance  of  the  contest 
War.  which  was  now  to  open  between  these  two  nations.  To 
England  it  brought  a  social,  a  religious,  and  in  the  end  a 
political  revolution.  The  Peasant  Kevolfc,  Lollardry,  and 
the  New  Monarchy  were  direct  issues  of  the  Hundred 
Years'  War.  With  it  began  the  military  renown  of 
England ;  with  it  opened  her  struggle  for  the  mastery  of 
the  seas.  The  pride  begotten  by  great  victories  and  a 
sudden  revelation  of  warlike  prowess  roused  the  country 
not  only  to  a  new  ambition,  a  new  resolve  to  assert  itself 
as  a  European  power,  but  to  a  repudiation  of  the  claims 
of  the  Papacy  and  an  assertion  of  the  ecclesiastical  inde- 
pendence both  of  Church  and  Crown  which  paved  the  way 
for  and  gave  its  ultimate  form  to  the  English  Eeformation. 
The  peculiar  shape  which  English  warfare  assumed,  the 
triumph  of  the  yeoman  and  archer  over  noble  and  knight, 
gave  new  force  to  the  political  advance  of  the  Commons. 
On  the  other  hand  the  misery  of  the  war  produced  the 
first  great  open  feud  between  labour  and  capital.  The 
glory  of  Cre$y  or  Poitiers  was  dearly  bought  by  the  up- 
growth of  English  pauperism.  The  warlike  temper  nursed 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1401. 


403 


1327- 
1347. 


The 

Imperial 
Alliance, 


on  foreign  fields  begot  at  home  a  new  turbulence  and  scorn    CHAP.  II. 
of  law,  woke  a  new  feudal  spirit  in  the  baronage,  and     Edward 
sowed  in  the  revolution  which  placed  a  new  house  on   theTh 
the  throne  the  seeds  of  that  fatal  strife  over  the  succes- 
sion which  troubled  England  to  the  days  of  Elizabeth. 
Nor   was   the   contest   of  less  import  in  the  history  of 
France.     If  it  struck  her  for  the  moment  from  her  height 
of  pride,  it  raised  her  in  the  end  to  the  front  rank  among 
the  states  of  Europe.      It  carried  her  boundaries  to  the 
Ehone  and  the  Pyrenees.     It  wrecked  alike  the  feudal 
power   of  her   noblesse   and  the    hopes  of  constitutional 
liberty  which  might  have  sprung  from  the  emancipation 
of  the  peasant  or  the  action  of  the  burgher.    It  founded  a 
royal  despotism  which  reached  its  height  in  Eichelieu  and 
finally  plunged  France  into  the  gulf  of  the  Revolution. 

Of  these  mighty  issues  little  could  be  foreseen  at  the 
moment  when  Philip  and  Edward  declared  war.  But  from 
the  very  first  the  war  took  European  dimensions.  The 
young  King  saw  clearly  the  greater  strength  of  France. 
The  weakness  of  the  Empire,  the  captivity  of  the  Papacy 
at  Avignon,  left  her  without  a  rival  among  European 
powers.  The  French  chivalry  was  the  envy  of  the  world, 
and  its  military  fame  had  just  been  heightened  by  a 
victory  over  the  Flemish  communes  at  CasseL  In  num- 
bers, in  wealth,  the  French  people  far  surpassed  their 
neighbours  over  the  Channel.  England  can  hardly  have 
counted  more  than  four  millions  of  inhabitants,  France 
boasted  of  twenty.  The  clinging  of  our  kings  to  their 
foreign  dominions  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  their 
subjects  in  Gascony,  Aquitaine,  and  Poitou  must  have 
equalled  in  number  their  subjects  in  England.  There 
was  the  same  disproportion  in  the  wealth  of  the  two 
countries  and,  as  men  held  then,  in  their  military  re- 
sources. Edward  could  bring  only  eight  thousand  men- 
at-arms  to  the  field.  Philip,  while  a  third  of  his  force 
was  busy  elsewhero,  could  appear  at  the  head  of  forty 
thousand.  Of  th?  revolution  in  wa.rfare  which  was  to 


404 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II. 

Edward 
the  Third. 

1327- 
1347. 


Its 

Relation 

to  the 
Papacy. 


reverse  this  superiority,  to  make  the  footman  rather  than 
the  horseman  the  strength  of  an  army,  the  world  and 
even  the  English  King,  in  spite  of  Falkirk  and  Halidon, 
as  yet  recked  little.  Edward's  whole  energy  was  bent  on 
meeting  the  strength  of  France  by  a  coalition  of  powers 
against  her,  and  his  plans  were  helped  by  the  dread 
which  the  great  feudatories  of  the  empire  who  lay  nearest 
to  him,  the  Duke  of  Brabant,  the  Counts  of  Hainault  and 
Gelders,  the  Markgrave  of  Juliers,  felt  of  French  annex- 
ation. They  listened  willingly  enough  to  his  offers.  Sixty 
thousand  crowns  purchased  the  alliance  of  Brabant.  Lesser 
subsidies  bought  that  of  the  two  counts  and  the  Mark- 
grave.  The  King's  work  was  helped  indeed  by  his  domestic 
relations.  The  Count  of  Hainault  was  Edward's  father-in- 
law;  he  was  also  the  father-in-law  of  the  Count  of  Gelders. 
But  the  marriage  of  a  third  of  the  Count's  daughters 
brought  the  English  King  a  more  important  ally.  She  was 
wedded  to  the  Emperor,  Lewis  of  Bavaria,  and  the  con- 
nexion that  thus  existed  between  the  English  and  Imperial 
Courts  facilitated  the  negotiations  which  ended  in  a 
formal  alliance. 

But  the  league  had  a  more  solid  ground.  The  Emperor, 
like  Edward,  had  his  strife  with  France.  His  strife  sprang 
from  the  new  position  of  the  Papacy.  The  removal  of  the 
Popes  to  Avignon  which  followed  on  the  quarrel  of 
Boniface  the  Eighth  with  Philip  le  Bel  and  the  subjection 
to  the  French  court  which  resulted  from  it  affected  the 
whole  state  of  European  politics.  In  the  ever-recurring 
contest  between  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire  France  had  of 
old  been  the  lieutenant  of  the  Roman  See.  But  with  the 
settlement  at  Avignon  the  relation  changed,  and  the  Pope 
became  the  lieutenant  of  France.  Instead  of  the  Papacy 
using  the  French  Kings  in  its  war  of  ideas  against  the 
Empire  the  French  Kings  used  the  Papacy  as  an  instru- 
ment in  their  political  rivalry  with  the  Emperors.  But  if 
the  position  of  the  Pope  drew  Lewis  to  the  side  of  England, 
it  had  much  to  do  with  drawing  Edward  to  the  side  of 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


405 


1327- 
1347 


Lewis.  It  was  this  that  made  the  alliance,  fruitless  as  it  CHAP.  II. 
proved  in  a  military  sense,  so  memorable  in  its  religious  Edward 
results.  Hitherto  England  had  been  mainly  on  the  side  of 
the  Popes  in  their  strife  against  the  Emperors.  Now  that 
the  Pope  had  become  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  a  power  which 
was  to  be  its  great  enemy,  the  country  was  driven  to  close 
alliances  with  the  Empire  and  to  an  ever-growing  aliena- 
tion from  the  Roman  See.  In  Scotch  affairs  the  hostility 
of  the  Popes  had  been  steady  and  vexatious  ever  since 
Edward  the  First's  time,  and  from  the  moment  that  this 
fresh  struggle  commenced  they  again  showed  their  French 
partizanship.  When  Lewis  made  a  last  appeal  for  peace, 
Philip  of  Valois  made  Benedict  XII.  lay  down  as  a 
condition  that  the  Emperor  should  form  no  alliance  with 
an  enemy  of  France.  The  quarrel  of  both  England  and 
Germany  with  the  Papacy  at  once  grew  ripe.  The  German 
Diet  met  to  declare  that  the  Imperial  power  came  from 
God  alone,  and  that  the  choice  of  an  Emperor  needed  no 
Papal  confirmation,  while  Benedict  replied  by  a  formal 
excommunication  of  Lewis.  England  on  the  other  hand 
entered  on  a  religious  revolution  when  she  stood  hand  in 
hand  with  an  excommunicated  power.  It  was  significant 
that  though  worship  ceased  in  Flanders  on  the  Pope's 
interdict,  the  English  priests  who  were  brought  over  set 
the  interdict  at  nought. 

The  negotiation  of  this  alliance  occupied  the  whole  of 
1337 ;  it  ended  in  a  promise  of  the  Emperor  on  payment 
of  3,000  gold  florins  to  furnish  two  thousand  men  at  arms. 
In  the  opening  of  1338  an  attack  of  Philip  on  the 
Agenois  forced  Edward  into  open  war.  His  profuse  ex- 
penditure however  brought  little  fruit.  Though  Edward 
crossed  to  Antwerp  in  the  summer,  the  year  was  spent  in 
negotiations  with  the  princes  of  the  Lower  Rhine  and  in 
an  interview  with  the  Emperor  at  Coblentz,  where  Lewis 
appointed  him  Vicar- General  of  the  Emperor  for  all  terri- 
tories on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  The  occupation  of 
Cambray,  an  Imperial  fief,  by  the  French  King  gave  a 

VOL.  L— 27 


Failure 

of  the 

A  lliance. 


406 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


.OOK 


1327- 
1347. 


CHAP.  II.  formal  ground  for  calling  the  princes  of  this  district  to 
Edward  Edward's  standard.  But  already  the  great  alliance  showed 
the  Third.  gjgns  of  yielding.  Edward,  uneasy  at  his  connexion  with 
an  Emperor  under  the  ban  of  the  Church  and  harassed  by 
vehement  remonstrances  from  the  Pope,  entered  again  into 
negotiations  with  France  in  the  winter  of  1338 ;  and  Lewis, 
alarmed  in  his  turn,  listened  to  fresh  overtures  from  Bene- 
dict, who  held  out  vague  hopes  of  reconciliation  while  he 
threatened  a  renewed  excommunication  if  Lewis  persisted 
in  invading  France.  The  non-arrival  of  the  English 
subsidy  decided  the  Emperor  to  take  no  personal  part  in 
the  war,  and  the  attitude  of  Lewis  told  on  the  temper  of 
Edward's  German  allies.  Though  all  joined  him  in  the 
summer  of  1339  on  his  formal  summons  of  them  as  Vicar- 
General  of  the  Empire,  and  his  army  when  it  appeared 
before  Cambray  numbered  forty  thousand  men,  their  ardour 
cooled  as  the  town  held  out.  Philip  approached  it  from 
the  south,  and  on  Edward's  announcing  his  resolve  to  cross 
the  river  and  attack  him  he  was  at  once  deserted  by  the 
two  border  princes  who  had  most  to  lose  from  a  contest 
with  France,  the  Counts  of  Hainault  and  'Namur.  But 
the  King  was  still  full  of  hope.  He  pushed  forward  to  the 
country  round  St.  Quentin  between  the  head  waters  of  the 
Somme  and  the  Oise  with  the  purpose  of  forcing  a  decisive 
engagement.  But  he  found  Philip  strongly  encamped,  and 
declaring  their  supplies  exhausted  his  allies  at  once  called 
for  a  retreat.  It  was  in  vain  that  Edward  moved  slowly 
for  a  week  along  the  French  border.  Philip's  position  was 
too  strongly  guarded  by  marshes  and  entrenchments  to  be 
attacked,  and  at  last  the  allies  would  stay  no  longer.  At 
the  news  that  the  French  King  had  withdrawn  to  the 
south  the  whole  army  in  turn  fell  back  upon  Brussels. 

The  failure  of  the  campaign  dispelled  the  hopes  which 
Edward  had  drawn  from  his  alliance  with  the  Empire. 
With  the  exhaustion  of  his  subsidies  the  princes  of  the 
Low  Countries  became  inactive.  The  Duke  of  Brabant 
became  cooler  in  his  friendship.  The  Emperor  himself, 


England 
and  the 
Papacy. 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


407 


the  Third 

1327 
.1347. 


still  looking  to  an  accommodation  with  the  Pope  and  justly  CHAP.  II. 
jealous  of  Edward's  own  intrigues  at  Avignon,  wavered  Edward, 
and  at  last  fell  away.  But  though  the  alliance  ended  in 
disappointment  it  had  given  a  new  impulse  to  the  grudge 
against  the  Papacy  which  began  with  its  extortions  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Third.  The  hold  of  Rome  on  the 
loyalty  of  England  was  sensibly  weakening.  Their  transfer 
from  the  Eternal  City  to  Avignon  robbed  the  Popes  of  half 
the  awe  which  they  had  inspired  among  Englishmen. 
Not  only  did  it  bring  them  nearer  and  more  into  the  light 
of  common  day,  but  it  dwarfed  them  into  mere  agents  of 
French  policy.  The  old  bitterness  at  their  exactions  was  re- 
vived by  the  greed  to  which  they  were  driven  through  their 
costly  efforts  to  impose  a  French  and  Papal  Emperor  on 
Germany  as  well  as  to  secure  themselves  in  their  new 
capital  on  the  Rhone.  The  mighty  building,  half  fortress, 
half  palace,  which  still  awes  the  traveller  at  Avignon  has 
played  its  part  in  our  history.  Its  erection  was  to  the 
rise  of  Lollardry  what  the  erection  of  St.  Peter's  was  to 
the  rise  of  Lutheranism.  Its  massive  walls,  its  stately 
chapel,  its  chambers  glowing  with  the  frescoes  of  Simone 
Memmi.  the  garden  which  covered  its  roof  with  a  strange 
verdure,  called  year  by  year  for  fresh  supplies  of  gold  ;  and 
for  this  as  for  the  wider  and  costlier  schemes  of  Papal 
policy  gold  could  be  got  only  by  pressing  harder  and 
harder  on  the  national  churches  the  worst  claims  of  the 
Papal  court,  by  demands  of  first-fruits  and  annates  from 
rectory  and  bishoprick,  by  pretensions  to  the  right  of 
bestowing  all  benefices  which  were  in  ecclesiastical 
patronage  and  by  the  sale  of  these  presentations,  by  the 
direct  taxation  of  the  clergy,  by  the  intrusion  of  foreign 
priests  into  English  livings,  by  opening  a  mart  for  the 
disposal  of  pardons,  dispensations,  and  indulgences,  and  by 
encouraging  appeals  from  every  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction 
to  the  Papal  court.  ISTo  grievance  was  more  bitterly  felt 
than  this  grievance  of  appeals.  Cases  of  the  most  trifling 
importance  were  called  for  decision  out  of  the  realm  to  a 


408  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  tribunal  whose  delays  were  proverbial  and  whose  fees 
Edward  were  enormous.  The  envoy  of  an  Oxford  College  which 
theThird.  SOUght  only  a  formal  licence  to  turn  a  vicarage  into  a 
13477  rectory  had  not  only  to  bear  the  expense  and  toil  of  a 
journey  which  then  occupied  some  eighteen  days  but  was 
kept  dangling  at  Avignon  for  three-aud-twenty  weeks. 
Humiliating  and  vexatious  however  as  these  appeals  were, 
they  were  but  one  among  the  means  of  extortion  which 
the  Papal  court  multiplied  as  its  needs  grew  greater.  The 
protest  of  a  later  Parliament,  exaggerated  as  its  statements 
no  doubt  are,  shows  the  extent  of  the  national  irritation, 
if  not  of  the  grievances  which  produced  it.  It  asserted 
that  the  taxes  levied  by  the  Pope  amounted  to  five  times 
the  amount  of  those  levied  by  the  king ;  that  by  reserva- 
tions during  the  life  of  actual  holders  the  Pope  disposed 
of  the  same  bishoprick  four  or  five  times  over,  receiving 
each  time  the  first-fruits.  "  The  brokers  of  the  sinful  city 
of  Home  promote  for  money  unlearned  and  unworthy 
caitiffs  to  benefices  to  the  value  of  a  thousand  marks, 
while  the  poor  and  learned  hardly  obtain  one  of  twenty. 
So  decays  sound  learning.  They  present  aliens  who 
neither  see  nor  care  to  see  their  parishioners,  despise 
God's  services,  convey  away  the  treasure  of  the  realm,  and 
are  worse  than  Jews  or  Saracens.  The  Pope's  revenue 
from  England  alone  is  larger  than  that  of  any  prince  in 
Christendom.  God  gave  his  sheep  to  be  pastured,  not 
to  be  shaven  and  shorn."  At  the  close  of  this  reign 
indeed  the  deaneries  of  Lichfield,  Salisbury,  and  York, 
the  archdeaconry  of  Canterbury,  which  was  reputed  the 
wealthiest  English  benefice,  together  with  a  host  of 
prebends  and  preferments,  were  held  by  Italian  cardinals 
and  priests,  while  the  Pope's  collector  from  his  office 
in  London  sent  twenty  thousand  marks  a  year  to  the 
Papal  treasury. 
Protest  of  But  the  greed  of  the  Popes  was  no  new  grievance, 

the.  Par-   though  the  increase  of  these  exactions  since  the  removal 
Itament. 

to  Avignon  gave  it  a  new  force.     What  alienated  England 


IV] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


409 


Edward 
the  Third 

1327 
134? 


most  was  their  connexion  with  and  dependence  on  France.  CHAP.  H. 
From  the  first  outset  of  the  troubles  in  the  North  their 
attitude  had  been  one  of  hostility  to  the  English  projects. 
France  was  too  useful  a  supporter  of  the  Papal  court  to 
find  much  difficulty  in  inducing  it  to  aid  in  hampering  the 
growth  of  English  greatness.  Boniface  the  Eighth  released 
Balliol  from  his  oath  of  fealty,  and  forbad  Edward  to 
attack  Scotland  on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  fief  of  the 
Eoman  see.  His  intervention  was  met  by  a  solemn  and 
emphatic  protest  from  the  English  Parliament;  but  it 
none  the  less  formed  a  terrible  obstacle  in  Edward's  way. 
The  obstacle  was  at  last  removed  by  the  quarrel  of  Boniface 
with  Philip  the  Fair;  but  the  end  of  this  quarrel  only 
threw  the  Papacy  more  completely  into  the  hands  of 
France.  Though  Avignon  remained  imperial  soil,  the 
removal  of  the  Popes  to  this  city  on  the  verge  of  their 
dominions  made  them  mere  tools  of  the  French  Kings. 
Much  no  doubt  of  the  endless  negotiation  which  the 
Papal  court  carried  on  with  Edward  the  Third  in  his  strife 
with  Philip  of  Valois  was  an  honest  struggle  for  peace. 
But  to  England  it  seemed  the  mere  interference  of  a 
dependent  on  behalf  of  "  our  enemy  of  France."  The 
people  scorned  a  "French  Pope,"  and  threatened  Papal 
legates  with  stoning  when  they  landed  on  English  shores. 
The  alliance  of  Edward  with  an  excommunicated  Emperor, 
the  bold  defiance  with  which  English  priests  said  mass  in 
Flanders  when  an  interdict  reduced  the  Flemish  priests  to 
silence,  were  significant  tokens  of  the  new  attitude  which 
England  was  taking  up  in  the  face  of  Popes  who  were 
leagued  with  its  enemy.  The  old  quarrel  over  ecclesiastical 
wrongs  was  renewed  in  a  formal  and  decisive  way.  In 
1343  the  Commons  petitioned  for  the  redress  of  the 
grievance  of  Papal  appointments  to  vacant  livings  in 
despite  of  the  rights  of  patrons  or  the  Crown ;  and 
Edward  formally  complained  to  the  Pope  of  his  appointing 
"  foreigners,  most  of  them  suspicious  persons,  who  do 
not  reside  on  their  benefices,  who  do  not  know  the  faces 


410  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  of  the  flocks  entrusted  to  them,  who  do  not  understand 

Edward     their  language,  but,  neglecting  the  cure  of  souls,  seek  as 

the  Third.  hireiingS  only  their  worldly  hire."     In  yet  sharper  words 

1347?     the  King  rebuked  the  Papal  greed.     "  The  successor  of 

the  Apostles  was  set  over  the  Lord's  sheep  to  feed  and 

not  to  shear  them."     The  Parliament  declared  "  that  they 

neither  could  nor  would  tolerate  such  things  any  longer ; " 

and  the  general   irritation  moved   slowly  towards   those 

statutes  of  Provisors  and  Praemunire  which  heralded  the 

policy  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

Flanders.  But  for  the  moment  the  strife  with  the  Papacy  was 
set  aside  in  the  efforts  which  were  needed  for  a  new 
struggle  with  France.  The  campaign  of  1339  had  not 
only  ended  in  failure,  it  had  dispelled  the  trust  of  Edward 
in  an  Imperial  alliance.  But  as  this  hope  faded  away  a 
fresh  hope  dawned  on  the  King  from  another  quarter. 
Flanders,  still  bleeding  from  the  defeat  of  its  burghers 
by  the  French  knighthood,  was  his  natural  ally.  England 
was  the  great  wool-producing  country  of  the  west,  but 
few  woollen  fabrics  were  woven  in  England.  The  number 
of  weavers'  gilds  shows  that  the  trade  was  gradually  ex- 
tending, and  at  the  very  outset  of  his  reign  Edward  had 
taken  steps  for  its  encouragement.  He  invited  Flemish 
weavers  to  settle  in  his  country,  and  took  the  new  immi- 
grants, who  chose  the  eastern  counties  for  the  seat  of  their 
trade,  under  his  royal  protection.  But  English  manufac- 
tures were  still  in  their  infancy  and  nine-tenths  of  the 
English  wool  went  to  the  looms  of  Bruges  or  of  Ghent. 
We  may  see  the  rapid  growth  of  this  export  trade  in  the 
fact  that  the  King  received  in  a  single  year  more  than 
£30,000  from  duties  levied  on  wool  alone.  The  wool-sack 
which  forms  the  Chancellors  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords 
is  said  to  witness  to  the  importance  which  the  govern- 
ment attached  to  this  new  source  of  wealth.  A  stoppage 
of  this  export  threw  half  the  population  of  the  great 
Flemish  towns  out  of  work,  and  the  irritation  caused  in 
Flanders  by  the  interruption  which  this  trade  sustained 


IV .J  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  411 

through  the  piracies  that  Philip's  ships  were  carrying  on    CHAP.  II. 
in  the  Channel  showed  how  effective  the  threat  of  such     Edward 
a  stoppage  would  be  in  securing  their  alliance.     Nor  was   the  Third 
this  the  only  ground  for  hoping  for  aid  from  the  Flemish      1347" 
towns.     Their  democratic  spirit  jostled  roughly  with  the 
feudalism  of  France.     If  their  counts  clung  to  the  French 
monarchy,  the  towns  themselves,  proud  of  their  immense 
population,  their  thriving  industry,  their  vast  wealth,  drew 
more  and  more  to  independence.     Jacques  van  Arteveldt, 
a  great  brewer  of  Ghent,  wielded  the  chief  influence  in 
their  councils,  and  his  aim  was  to  build  up  a  confederacy 
which  might  hold  France  in  check  along  her  northern 
border. 

His  plans  had  as  yet  brought  no  help  from  the  Flemish  The 
towns,  but  at  the  close  of  1339  they  set  aside  their  J//^L 
neutrality  for  open  aid.  The  great  plan  of  Federation 
which  Van  Arteveldt  had  been  devising  as  a  check  on 
the  aggression  of  France  was  carried  out  in  a  treaty 
concluded  between  Edward,  the  Duke  of  Brabant,  the 
cities  of  Brussels,  Antwerp,  Louvain,  Ghent,  Bruges, 
Ypres,  and  seven  others.  By  this  remarkable  treaty  it 
was  provided  that  war  should  be  begun  and  ended  only 
by  mutual  consent,  free  commerce  be  encouraged  between 
Flanders  and  Brabant,  and  no  change  made  in  their  com- 
mercial arrangements  save  with  the  consent  of  the  whole 
league.  By  a  subsequent  treaty  the  Flemish  towns  owned 
Edward  as  King  of  France,  and  declared  war  against 
Philip  of  Valois.  But  their  voice  was  decisive  on  the 
course  of  the  campaign  which  opened  in  1340.  As  Philip 
held  the  Upper  Scheldt  by  the  occupation  of  Carnbray,  so 
he  held  the  Lower  Scheldt  by  that  of  Tournay,  a  fortress 
which  broke  the  line  of  commerce  between  Flanders  and 
Brabant.  It  was  a  condition  of  the  Flemish  alliance 
therefore  that  the  war  should  open  with  the  capture  of 
Tournay.  It  was  only  at  the  cost  of  a  fight  however 
that  Edward  could  now  cross  the  Channel  to  undertake 
the  siege.  France  was  as  superior  in  force  at  sea  as  on 


412  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  land ;  and  a  fleet  of  two  hundred  vessels  gathered  at  Sluys 
Edward  to  intercept  him.  But  the  fine  seamanship  of  the 
theThird.  Engiisn  sailors  justified  the  courage  of  their  King  in 
13477  attacking  this  fleet  with  far  smaller  forces ;  the  French 
ships  were  utterly  destroyed  and  twenty  thousand  French- 
men slain  in  the  encounter.  It  was  with  the  lustre  of 
this  great  victory  about  him  that  Edward  marched  upon 
Tournay.  Its  siege  however  proved  as  fruitless  as  that 
of  Cambray  in  the  preceding  year,  and  after  two  months 
of  investment  his  vast  army  of  one  hundred  thousand 
men  broke  up  without  either  capturing  the  town  or 
bringing  Philip  when  he  approached  it  to  an  engagement. 
Want  of  money  forced  Edward  to  a  truce  for  a  year,  and 
he  returned  beggared  and  embittered  to  England. 
Edward's  He  had  been  worsted  in  war  as  in  diplomacy.  One 
distress.  nava}  Vict0ry  alone  redeemed  years  of  failure  and  expense. 
Guienne  was  all  but  lost,  England  was  suffering  from  the 
terrible  taxation,  from  the  ruin  of  commerce,  from  the 
ravages  of  her  coast.  Five  years  of  constant  reverses  were 
hard  blows  for  a  King  of  twenty-eight  who  had  been 
glorious  and  successful  at  twenty-three.  His  financial 
difficulties  indeed  were  enormous.  It  was  in  vain  that, 
availing  himself  of  an  Act  which  forbad  the  exportation 
of  wool  "  till  by  the  King  and  his  Council  it  is  otherwise 
provided,"  he  turned  for  the  time  the  wool-trade  into  a 
royal  monopoly  and  became  the  sole  wool  exporter,  buying 
at  £3  and  selling  at  £20  the  sack.  The  campaign  of  1339 
brought  with  it  a  crushing  debt :  that  of  1340  proved  yet 
more  costly.  Edward  attributed  his  failure  to  the  slack- 
ness of  his  ministers  in  sending  money  and  supplies,  and 
this  to  their  silent  opposition  to  the  war.  But  wroth  as 
he  was  on  his  return,  a  short  struggle  between  the  minis- 
ters and  the  King  ended  in  a  reconciliation,  and  prepar- 
ations for  renewed  hostilities  went  on.  Abroad  indeed 
nothing  could  be  done.  The  Emperor  finally  withdrew 
from  Edward's  friendship.  A  new  Pope,  Clement  the  Sixth, 
proved  even  more  French  in  sentiment  than  his  prede- 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


413 


cessor.  Flanders  alone  held  true  of  all  England's  foreign 
allies.  Edward  was  powerless  to  attack  Philip  in  the 
realm  he  claimed  for  his  own;  what  strength  he  could 
gather  was  needed  to  prevent  the  utter  ruin  of  the  English 
cause  in  Scotland  on  the  return  of  David  Bruce.  Edward's 
soldiers  had  been  driven  from  the  open  country  and  con- 
fined to  the  fortresses  of  the  Lowlands.  Even  these  were 
at  last  reft  away.  Perth  was  taken  by  siege,  and  the 
King  was  too  late  to  prevent  the  surrender  of  Stirling. 
Edinburgh  was  captured  by  a  stratagem.  Only  Roxburgh 
and  Berwick  were  saved  by  a  truce  which  Edward  was 
driven  to  conclude  with  the  Scots. 

But  with  the  difficulties  of  the  Crown  the  weight  of 
the  two  Houses  made  itself  more  and  more  sensibly 
felt.  The  almost  incessant  warfare  which  had  gone  on 
since  the  accession  of  Edward  the  Third  consolidated 
and  developed  the  power  which  they  had  gained  from 
the  dissensions  of  his  father's  reign.  The  need  of  con- 
tinual grants  brought  about  an  assembly  of  Parliament 
year  by  year,  and  the  subsidies  that  were  accorded  to 
the  King  showed  the  potency  of  the  financial  engine 
which  the  Crown  could  now  bring  into  play.  In  a  single 
year  the  Parliament  granted  twenty  thousand  sacks,  or 
half  the  wool  of  the  realm.  Two  years  later  the  Commons 
voted  an  aid  of  thirty  thousand  sacks.  In  1339  the 
barons  granted  the  tenth  sheep  and  fleece  and  lamb.  The 
clergy  granted  two  tenths  in  one  year,  and  a  tenth  for 
three  years  in  the  next.  But  with  each  supply  some  step 
was  made  to  greater  political  influence.  In  his  earlier 
years  Edward  showed  no  jealousy  of  the  Parliament.  His 
policy  was  to  make  the  struggle  with  France  a  national 
one  by  winning  for  it  the  sympathy  of  the  people  at  large; 
and  with  this  view  he  not  only  published  in  the  County 
Courts  the  efforts  he  had  made  for  peace,  but  appealed 
again  and  again  for  the  sanction  and  advice  of  Parliament 
in  his  enterprize.  In  1331  he  asked  the  Estates  whether 
they  would  prefer  negotiation  or  war:  in  1338  he  declared 


CHAP.  II. 

Edward 
the  Third, 

1327- 
1347. 


Progress 
of  Par- 
liament. 


414  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  that  his  expedition  to  Flanders  was  made  by  the  assent  of 
Edward  t'ne  Lords  and  at  the  prayer  of  the  Commons.  The  part 
thejThird.  Qf  foe  last  in  public  affairs  grew  greater  in  spite  of  their 
1347!  own  efforts  to  remain  obscure.  From  the  opening  of  the 
reign  a  crowd  of  enactments  for  the  regulation  of  trade, 
whether  wise  or  unwise,  shows  the  influence  of  the  burgesses. 
But  the  final  division  of  Parliament  into  two  Houses,  a 
change  which  was  completed  by  1341,  necessarily  increased 
the  weight  of  the  Commons.  The  humble  trader  who 
shrank  from  counselling  the  Crown  in  great  matters  of 
policy  gathered  courage  as  he  found  himself  sitting  side 
by  side  with  the  knights  of  the  shire.  It  was  at  the 
moment  when  this  great  change  was  being  brought  about 
that  the  disasters  of  the  war  spurred  the  Parliament  to 
greater  activity.  The  enormous  grants  of  1340  were  bought 
by  the  King's  assent  to  statutes  which  provided  reme- 
dies for  grievances  of  which  the  Commons  complained. 
The  most  important  of  these  put  an  end  to  the  attempts 
which  Edward  had  made  like  his  grandfather  to  deal  with 
the  merchant  class  apart  from  the  Houses.  No  charges  or 
aid  was  henceforth  to  be  made  save  by  the  common  assent 
of  the  Estates  assembled  in  Parliament.  The  progress  of 
the  next  year  was  yet  more  important.  The  strife  of  the 
King  with  his  ministers,  the  foremost  of  whom  was 
Archbishop  Stratford,  ended  in  the  Primate's  refusal  to 
make  answer  to  the  royal  charges  save  in  full  Parliament, 
and  in  the  assent  of  the  King  to  a  resolution  of  the  Lords 
that  none  of  their  number,  whether  ministers  of  the  Crown 
or  no,  should  be  brought  to  trial  elsewhere  than  before  his 
peers.  The  Commons  demanded  and  obtained  the  appoint- 
ment of  commissioners  elected  in  Parliament  to  audit  the 
grants  already  made.  Finally  it  was  enacted '  that  at 
each  Parliament  the  ministers  should  hold  themselves 
accountable  for  all  grievances ;  that  on  any  vacancy  the 
King  should  take  counsel  with  his  lords  as  to  the  choice 
of  the  new  minister ;  and  that,  when  chosen,  each  minister 
should  be  sworn  in  Parliament. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  415 

At  the  moment  which  we  have  reached  therefore  the    CHAP.  II. 
position  of  the  Parliament  had  become  far  more  important     Edward 
.than  at  Edward's  accession.     Its  form  was  settled.     The    the  ThirA 
third  estate  had  gained  a  fuller  parliamentary  power.    The      iff  7" 
principle  of  ministerial  responsibility  to  the  Houses  had     ™ —  . 
been  established  by  formal  statute.     Bat  the  jealousy  of   the  truce. 
Edward  was  at  last   completely  roused,   and   from  this 
moment  he  looked  on  the  new  power  as  a  rival  to  his 
own.     The  Parliament  of  1341  had  no  sooner  broken  up 
than  he  revoked  by  Letters  Patent  the  statutes  it  had 
passed  as  done  in  prejudice  of  his  prerogative  and  only 
assented  to  for  the  time  to  prevent  worse  confusion.     The 
regular  assembly  of  the  Estates  was  suddenly  interrupted, 
and  two  years  passed  without  a  Parliament.     It  was  only 
the  continual  presence  of  war  which  from  this  time  drove 
Edward  to  summon  the  Houses  at  all.     Though  the  truce 
still  held  good  between  England  and  France  a  quarrel  of 
succession  to  the  Duchy  of  Brittany  which  broke  out  in 
1341  and  called  Philip  to  the  support  of  one  claimant,  his 
cousin  Charles  of  Blois,  and  Edward  to  the  support  of  a 
rival  claimant,  John  of  Montfort,  dragged  on  year  after 
year.     In  Flanders  things  went  ill  for  the  English  cause. 
The  dissensions  between  the  great  and  the  smaller  towns, 
and  in  the  greater  towns  themselves  between  the  weavers 
and  fullers,  dissensions  which   had  taxed  the  genius  of 
Van  Arteveldt  through  the  nine  years  of  his  wonderful 
rule,  broke  out  in  1345  into  a  revolt  at  Ghent  in  which 
the  great  statesman  was  slain.     "With  him  fell  a  design 
for  the  deposition  of  the  Count  of  Flanders  and  the  re- 
ception of  the  Prince  of  "Wales  in  his  stead  which  he 
was  ardently  pressing,  and  whose  political  results  might 
have   been   immense.      Deputies   were   at   once   sent   to 
England  to  excuse  Van  Arteveldt's  murder  and  to  promise 
loyalty  to  Edward;  but  the  King's  difficulties  had  now 
reached   their  height.     His    loans    from  the   Florentine 
bankers  amounted  to  half  a  million.     His  claim  on  the 
French  crown  found  not  a  single  adherent  save  among  the 


416 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1347! 

Edward 


CHAP.  ii.  burghers  of  the  Flemish  towns.  The  overtures  which  he 
Edward  niade  for  peace  were  contemptuously  rejected,  and  the 
theihird.  expirati0n  of  the  truce  in  1345  found  him  again  face  to 
face  with  France. 

But  ^  was  PernaPs  this  breakdown  of  all  foreign  hope 
marches  that  contributed  to  Edward's  success  in  the  fresh  out- 
on  Paris.  ^rea]j  Of  war  ^he  war  opened  in  Guienne,  and  Henry  of 
Lancaster,  who  was  now  known  as  the  Earl  of  Derby,  and 
who  with  the  Hainaulter  Sir  Walter  Maunay  took  the 
command  in  that  quarter,  at  once  showed  the  abilities  of  a 
great  general.  The  course  of  the  Garonne  was  cleared  by 
his  capture  of  La  Reole  and  Aiguillon,  that  of  the  Dor- 
dogne  by  the  reduction  of  Bergerac,  and  a  way  opened  for 
the  reconquest  of  Poitou  by  the  capture  of  Angouleme. 
These  unexpected  successes  roused  Philip  to  strenuous 
efforts,  and  a  hundred  thousand  men  gathered  under.  his 
son/John,  Duke  of  Normandy,  for  the  subjugation  of  the 
South.  Angouleme  was  won  back,  and  Aiguillon  besieged 
when  Edward  sailed  to  the  aid  of  his  hard-pressed  lieu- 
tenant. It  was  with  an  arrny  of  thirty  thousand  men, 
half  English,  half  Irish  and  Welsh,  that  he  commenced 
a  march  which  was  to  change  the  whole  face  of  the  war. 
His  aim  was  simple.  Flanders  was  still  true  to  Edward's 
cause,  and  while  Derby  was  pressing  on  in  the  south  a 
Flemish  army  besieged  Bouvines  and  threatened  France 
from  the  north.  The  King  had  at  first  proposed  to  land 
in  Guienne  and  relieve  the  forces  in  the  south  ;  but  sud- 
denly changing  his  design  he  disembarked  at  La  Hogue  and 
advanced  through  Normandy.  By  this  skilful  movement 
Edward  not  only  relieved  Derby  but  threatened  Paris,  and 
left  himself  able  to  co-operate  with  either  his  own  army  in 
the  south  or  the  Flemings  in  the  north.  Normandy  was 
totally  without  defence,  and  after  the  sack  of  Caen,  which 
was  then  one  of  the  wealthiest  towns  in  France,  Edward 
marched  upon  the  Seine.  His  march  threatened  Eouen 
and  Paris,  and  its  strategical  value  was  seen  by  the  sudden 
panic  of  the  French  King.  Philip  was  wholly  taken  by 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


417 


1327- 
1347. 


Creqy. 


surprize.     He  attempted  to  arrest  Edward's  .march  by  an    CHAP.  II. 
offer  to  restore  the  Duchy  of  Aquitaine  as  Edward  the     Edward 
Second  had  held  it,  but  the  offer  was  fruitless.    Philip  was    thej^ird- 
forced  to  call  his  sou  to  the  rescue.     John  at  once  raised 
the    siege   of    Aiguillon,    and   the   French   army   moved 
rapidly  to  the  north,  its  withdrawal  enabling  Derby  to 
capture   Poitiers   and   make  himself  thorough  master  of 
the  south.     But  John  was  too  distant  from  Paris  for  his 
forces  to  avail  Philip  in  his  emergency,  for  Edward,  findin^ 
the  bridges  on  the  Lower  Seine  broken,  pushed  straight  on 
Paris,  rebuilt  the  bridge  of  Poissy,  and  threatened  the 
capital. 

At  this  crisis  however  France  found  an  unexpected 
help  in  a  body  of  German  knights.  The  long  strife 
between  Lewis  of  Bavaria  and  the  Papacy  had  ended  at 
last  in  Clement's  carrying  out  his  sentence  of  deposition 
by  the  nomination  and  coronation  as  emperor  of  Charles 
of  Luxemburg,  a  son  of  King  John  of  Bohemia,  the 
well  known  Charles  IV.  of  the  Golden  Bull.  But  against 
this  Papal  assumption  of  a  right  to  bestow  the  German 
Crown  Germany  rose  as  one  man.  Not  a  town  opened  its 
gates  to  the  Papal  claimant,  and  driven  to  seek  help  and 
refuge  from  Philip  of  Valois  he  found  himself  at  this 
moment  on  the  eastern  frontier  of  France  with  his  father 
and  500  knights.  Hurrying  to  Paris  this  German  force 
formed  the  nucleus  of  an  army  which  assembled  at  St. 
Denys ;  and  which  was  soon  reinforced  by  15,000  Genoese 
cross-bowmen  who  had  been  hired  from  among  the  soldiers 
of  the  Lord  of  Monaco  on  the  sunny  Riviera  and  arrived 
at  this  hour  of  need.  With  this  host  rapidly  gathering  in 
his  front  Edward  abandoned  his  march  on  Paris,  which 
had  already  served  its  purpose  in  relieving  Derby,  and 
threw  himself  across  the  Seine  to  carry  out  the  second 
part  of  his  programme  by  a  junction  with  the  Flemings  at 
Gravelines  and  a  campaign  in  the  north.  But  the  rivers 
in  his  path  were  carefully  guarded,  and  it  was  only  by 
surprizing  the  ford  of  Blanche-Taque  on  the  Somme  that 


418 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  II.  the  King  escaped  the  necessity  of  surrendering  to  the  vast 
Edward  nos^  which  was  now  hastening  in  pursuit.  His  comnmni- 
the  Third.  Cati0ns  however  were  no  sooner  secured  than  he  halted  on 
1347."  tne  twenty-sixth  of  August  at  the  little  village  of  Cre^y 
in  Fonthieu  and  resolved  to  give  battle.  Half  of  his  army, 
which  had  been  greatly  reduced  in  strength  by  his  rapid 
marches,  consisted  of  light-armed  footmen  from  Ireland 
and  Wales ;  the  bulk  of  the  remainder  was  composed  of 
English  bowmen.  The  King  ordered  his  men-at-arms  to 
dismount,  and  drew  up  his  forces  on  a  low  rise  sloping 
gently  to  the  south-east,  with  a  deep  ditch  covering  its 
front,  and  its  flanks  protected  by  woods  and  a  little 
brook.  From  a  windmill  on  the  summit  of  this  rise 
Edward  could  overlook  the  whole  field  of  battle.  Imme- 
diately beneath  him  lay  his  reserve,  while  at  the  base  of 
the  slope  was  placed  the  main  body  of  the  army  in  two 
divisions,  that  to  the  right  commanded  by  the  young 
Prince  of  Wales,  Edward  "  the  Black  Prince,"  as  he  was 
called,  that  to  the  left  by  the  Earl  of  Northampton.  A 
small  ditch  protected  the  English  front,  and  behind  it  the 
bowmen  were  drawn  up  "  in  the  form  of  a  harrow  "  with 
small  bombards  between  them  "  which  with  fire  threw 
little  iron  balls  to  frighten  the  horses,"  the  first  instance 
•  known  of  the  use  of  artillery  in  field-warfare. 

The  halt  of  the  English  army  took  Philip  by  surprize, 
and  he  attempted  for  a  time  to  check  the  advance  of  his 
army.  But  the  attempt  was  fruitless  and  the  disorderly 
host  rolled  on  to  the  English  front.  The  sight  of  his 
enemies  indeed  stirred  Philip's  own  blood  to  fury,  "  for  he 
hated  them."  The  fight  began  at  vespers.  The  Genoese 
cross-bowmen  were  ordered  to  open  the  attack,  but  the 
men  were  weary  with  their  march,  a  sudden  storm  wetted 
and  rendered  useless  their  bowstrings,  and  the  loud  shouts 
with  which  they  leapt  forward  to  the  encounter  were  met 
with  dogged  silence  in  the  English  ranks.  Their  first 
arrow  flight  however  brought  a  terrible  reply.  So  rapid 
was  the  English  shot  "  that  it  seemed  as  if  it  snowed." 


IV. J 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


419 


1327- 
1347. 


"  Kill  me  these  scoundrels,"  shouted  Philip,  as  the  Genoese  CHAP.  II. 
fell  back;  and  his  men-at-arms  plunged  butchering  into  Edward 
their  broken  ranks  while  the  Counts  of  Alen9on  and  the  Third- 
Flanders  at  the  head  of  the  French  knighthood  fell  hotly 
on  the  Prince's  line.  For  an  instant  his  small  force  seemed 
lost,  and  he  called  his  father  to  support  him.  But  Edward 
refused  to  send  him  aid.  "  Is  he  dead,  or  unhorsed,  or  so 
wounded  that  he  cannot  help  himself?"  he  asked  the 
envoy.  "No,  sir,"  was  the  reply,  "but  he  is  in  a  hard 
passage  of  arms,  and  sorely  needs  your  help."  "Pceturn 
to  those  that  sent  you,"  said  the  King,  "  and  bid  them  not 
send  to  me  again  so  long  as  my  son  lives !  Let  the  boy 
win  his  spurs,  for,  if  God  so  order  it,  I  will  that  the  day 
may  be  his  and  that  the  honour  may  be  with  him  and 
them  to  whom  I  have  given  it  in  charge."  Edward  could 
see  in  fact  from  his  higher  ground  that  all  went  well. 
The  English  bowmen  and  men-at-arms  held  their  ground 
stoutly  while  the  Welshmen  stabbed  the  French  horses  in 
the  melly  and  brought  knight  after  knight  to  the  ground. 
Soon  the  French  host  was  wavering  in  a  fatal  confusion. 
"  You  are  my  vassals,  my  friends,"  cried  the  blind  John  of 
Bohemia  to  the  German  nobles  around  him,  "  I  pray  and 
beseech  you  to  lead  me  so  far  into  the  fight  that  I  may 
strike  one  good  blow  with  this  sword  of  mine  ! "  Linking 
their  bridles  together,  the  little  company  plunged  into  the 
thick  of  the  combat  to  fall  as  their  fellows  were  falling. 
The  battle  went  steadily  against  the  French.  At  last 
Philip  himself  hurried  from  the  field,  and  the  defeat 
became  a  rout.  Twelve  hundred  knights  and  thirty 
thousand  footmen — a  number  equal  to  the  whole  English 
force — lay  dead  upon  the  ground. 

"  God  has  punished  us  for  our  sins,"  cries  the  chronicler 
of  St.  Deuys  in  a  passion  of  bewildered  grief  as  he  tells 
the  rout  of  the  great  host  which  he  had  seen  mustering 
beneath  his  abbey  walls.  But  the  fall  of  France  was 
hardly  so  sudden  or  so  incomprehensible  as  the  ruin  at  a 
single  blow  of  a  system  of  warfare,  and  with  it  of  the 


The 
Yeoman. 


420  HISTOBY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

v'HAF.  II.  political   and   social  fabric  which  had  risen  out  of  that 
Edward     system-     Feudalism  rested  on  the  superiority  of  the  horse- 
(hejrhird.  man  ^o  the  footman,  of  the  mounted  noble   to  the   un- 
1347       mounted  churl.     The  real  fighting  power  of  a  feudal  army 
lay  in  its  knighthood,  in  the  baronage  and  landowners  who 
took  the  field,  each  with  his  group  of  esquires  and  mounted 
men-at-arms.     A  host  of  footmen  followed  them,  but  they 
were  ill-armed,  ill-disciplined,  and  seldom  called  on  to  play 
any  decisive  part  on  the  actual  battle-field.     In  France, 
and  especially  at  the  moment  we  have  reached,  the  con- 
trast  between  the   efficiency   of  these   two   elements   of 
warfare  was  more  striking  than  elsewhere.     Nowhere  was 
the  chivalry  so  splendid,  nowhere  was  the  general  misery 
and  oppression  of  the  poor  more  terribly  expressed  in  the 
worthlessness  of  the  mob  of  footmen  who  were  driven  by 
their  lords  to  the  camp.     In  England,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  failure  of  feudalism  to  win  a  complete  hold  on  the 
country  was  seen  in  the  persistence  of  the  older  national 
institutions  which  based  its  defence   on  the  general  levy 
of  its  freemen.     If  the  foreign  Kings  added  to  this  a  system 
of  warlike  organization  grounded  on  the  service  due  from  its 
military  tenants  to  the  Crown,  they  were  far  from  regarding 
this  as  superseding  the  national  "  fyrd."     The  Assize  of 
Arms,  the  Statute  of  Winchester,  show  with  what  care 
the  fyrd  was  held  in  a  state   of   efficiency.      Its  force 
indeed  as  an  engine  of  war  was  fast  rising  between  the 
age  of  Henry  the  Second  and  that  of  Edward  the  Third. 
The  social  changes  on  which  we  have  already  dwelt,  the 
facilities  given  to  alienation  and  the  subdivision  of  lands, 
the   transition   of  the  serf  into  a  copyholder  and  of  the 
copyholder   by   redemption   of   his  services   into  a  free- 
holder, the  rise  of  a  new  class  of  "  farmers  "  as  the  lords 
ceased   to  till  their  demesne  by  means   of   bailiffs  and 
adopted  the  practise  of  leasing  it  at  a  rent  or  "  farm  "  to 
one  of  the   customary  tenants,  the  general   increase   of 
wealth  which  was  telling  on  the  social  position  even  of 
those  who  still  remained  in  villenage,  undid  more  and 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307— 14G1  421 

more  the  earlier  process  which  had  degraded  the  free  ceorl    CHAP.  II 
of  the  English  Conquest  into  the  villein  of  the  Norrnan     Edward 
Conquest,    and   covered  the   land   with   a  population  of    ^J^d. 
yeomen,  some  freeholders,  some  with  services  that  every      1347 
day  became  less  weighty  and  already  left  them  virtually 
free. 

Such  men,  proud  of  their  right  to  justice  and  an  equal  The  B»u:. 
law,  called  by  attendance  in  the  county  court  to  a  share  in 
the  judicial,  the  financial,  and  the  political  life  of  the 
realm,  were  of  a  temper  to  make  soldiers  of  a  different 
sort  from  the  wretched  serfs  who  followed  the  feudal  lords 
of  the  Continent ;  and  they  were  equipped  with  a  weapon 
which  as  they  wielded  it  was  enough  of  itself  to  make 
a  revolution  in  the  art  of  war.  The  bow,  identified  as  it 
became  with  English  warfare,  was  the  weapon  not  of 
Englishmen  but  of  their  Norman  conquerors.  It  was  the 
Norman  arrow-flight  that  decided  the  day  of  Senlac. 
But  in  the  organization  of  the  national  army  it  had  been 
assigned  as  the  weapon  of  the  poorer  freeholders  who  were 
liable  to  serve  at  the  King's  summons ;  and  we  see  how 
closely  it  had  become  associated  with  them  in  the  picture 
of  Chaucer's  yeoman.  "  In  his  hand  he  bore  a  mighty 
bow."  Its  might  lay  not  only  in  the  range  of  the  heavy 
war-shaft,  a  range  we  are  told  of  four  hundred  yards,  but 
in  its  force.  The  English  archer,  taught  from  very  child- 
hood "  how  to  draw,  how  to  lay  his  body  to  the  bow,"  his 
skill  quickened  by  incessant  practise  and  constant  rivalry 
with  his  fellows,  raised  the  bow  into  a  terrible  engine  of 
war.  Thrown  out  along  the  front  in  a  loose  order  that 
alone  showed  their  vigour  and  self-dependence,  the  bow- 
men faced  ^nd  riddled  the  splendid  line  of  knighthood 
as  it  charged  upon  them.  The  galled  horses  "  reeled  right 
rudely."  Their  riders  found  even  the  steel  of  Milan  a 
poor  defence  against  the  grey-goose  shaft.  Gradually  the 
bow  dictated  the  very  tactics  of  an  English  battle.  If  the 
mass  of  cavalry  still  plunged  forward,  the  screen  of  archers 
broke  to  ri^ht  and  left  and  the  men-at-arms  who  lay  in 

VOL.  I.— 28 


422 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1327- 
1347. 


Siege  of 
Calais. 


CHAP.  II.  reserve  behind  them  made  short  work  of  the  broken  and 
Edward  disordered  horsemen,  while  the  light  troops  from  Wales 
thejrhird.  au(j  irelancl  flinging  themselves  into  the  melly  with  their 
long  knives  and  darts  brought  steed  after  steed  to  the 
ground.  It  was  this  new  military  engine  that  Edward  the 
Third  carried  to  the  fields  of  France.  His  armies  were 
practically  bodies  of  hired  soldiery,  for  the  short  period  of 
feudal  service  was  insufficient  for  foreign  campaigns,  and 
yeoman  and  baron  were  alike  drawn  by  a  high  rate  of  pay. 
An  archer's  daily  wages  equalled  some  five  shillings  of  onr 
present  money.  Such  payment  when  coupled  with  the 
hope  of  plunder  was  enough  to  draw  yeomen  from  thorpe 
and  farm ;  and  though  the  royal  treasury  was  drained  as 
it  had  never  been  drained  before  the  English  King  saw 
himself  after  the  day  of  Cre9y  the  master  of  a  force 
without  rival  in  the  stress  of  war. 

To  England  her  success  was  the  beginning  of  a  career 
of  military  glory,  which  fatal  as  it  was  destined  to  prove 
to  the  higher  sentiments  and  interests  of  the  nation  gave 
it  a  warlike  energy  such  as  it  had  never  known  before. 
Victory  followed  victory.  A  few  months  after  Cregy  a 
Scotch  army  marched  over  the  border  and  faced  on  the 
seventeenth  of  October  an  English  force  at  Neville's  Cross. 
But  it  was  soon  broken  by  the  arrow-flight  of  the  English 
archers,  and  the  Scotch  King  David  Bruce  was  taken 
prisoner.  The  withdrawal  of  the  French  from  the  Garonne 
enabled  Henry  of  Derby  to  recover  Poitou.  Edward 
meanwhile  with  a  decision  which  marks  his  military 
capacity  marched  from  the  field  of  Cregy  to  form  the 
siege  of  Calais.  No  measure  could  have  been  more 
popular  with  the  English  merchant  class,  for  Calais  was 
a  great  pirate-haven  and  in  a  single  year  twenty-two 
privateers  from  its  port  had  swept  the  Channel.  But 
Edward  was  guided  by  weightier  considerations  than  this. 
In  spite  of  his  victory  at  Sluys  the  superiority  of  France 
at  sea  had  been  a  constant  embarrassment.  From  this 
difficulty  the  capture  of  Calais  would  do  much  to  deliver 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  423 

him,  for  Dover  and  Calais  together  bridled  the  Channel.    CHAP.  II. 
Nor  was  this  all.     Not  only  would  the  possession  of  the     Edward 
town  give  Edward  a  base  of  operations  against  France,    tlle^ird- 
but  it  afforded  an  easy  means  of  communication  with  the      13477 
only  sure  allies  of  England,  the  towns  of  Flanders.    Flanders 
seemed  at  this  moment  to  be  wavering.     Its  Count  had 
fallen  at  Cre^y,  but  his  son  Lewis  le  Male,  though  his 
sympathies  were  as  French  as  his  father's,  was  received  in 
November   by  his   subjects   with   the  invariable  loyalty 
which  they  showed  to  their  rulers ;  and  his  own  efforts  to 
detach  them  from  England  were  seconded  by  the  influence 
of  the  Duke  of  Brabant.     But  with  Edward  close  at  hand 
beneath  the  walls  of  Calais  the  Flemish  towns  stood  true. 
They  prayed  the  young  Count  to  marry  Edward's  daughter, 
imprisoned  him  on  his  refusal,  and  on  his  escape  to  the 
French  Court  in  the  spring  of  1347  they  threw  themselves 
heartily  into   the  English   cause.     A  hundred  thousand 
Flemings  advanced  to   Cassel  and  ravaged   the   French 
frontier. 

The  danger  of  Calais  roused  Philip  from  the  panic 
which  had  followed  his  defeat,  and  with  a  vast  army  he 
advanced  to  the  north.  But  Edward's  lines  were  impreg- 
nable. The  French  King  failed  in  another  attempt  to 
dislodge  the  Flemings,  and  was  at  last  driven  to  retreat 
without  a  blow.  Hopeless  of  further  succour,  the  town  after 
a  year's  siege  was  starved  into  surrender  in  August  1347. 
Mercy  was  granted  to  the  garrison  and  the  people  on 
condition  that  six  of  the  citizens  gave  themselves  into 
the  English  King's  hands.  "  On  them,"  said  Edward 
with  a  burst  of  bitter  hatred,  "  I  will  do  my  will."  At 
the  sound  of  the  town  bell,  Jehan  le  Bel  tells  us,  the 
folk  of  Calais  gathered  round  the  bearer  of  these  terms, 
"  desiring  to  hear  their  good  news,  for  they  were  all  inad 
with  hunger.  When  the  said  knight  told  them  his  news, 
then  began  they  to  weep  and  cry  so  loudly  that  it  was 
great  pity.  Then  stood  up  the  wealthiest  burgess  of  the 
town,  Master  Eustache  de  St.  Pierre  by  name,  and  spake 


424  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  II.  thus  before  all :  '  My  masters,  great  grief  and  mishap 
Edward  ^  were  for  all  to  leave  such  a  people  as  this  is  to  die 

thejTMrd.  ^y  famine  or  otherwise ;  and  great  charity  and  grace 
J2i£~  would  he  win  from  our  Lord  who  could  defend  them  from 

lO*r/  • 

dying.  For  me,  I  have  great  hope  in  the  Lord  that  if  I 
can  save  this  people  by  my  death  I  shall  have  pardon  for 
-my  faults,  wherefore  will  I  be  the  first  of  the  six,  and  of 
my  own  will  put  myself  barefoot  in  my  shirt  and  with  a 
halter  round  my  neck  in  the  mercy  of  King  Edward.' " 
The  list  of  devoted  men  was  soon  made  up,  and  the 
victims  were  led  before  the  king.  "  All  the  host  assembled 
together ;  there  was  great  press,  and  many  bade  hang 
them  openly,  and  many  wept  for  pity.  The  noble  King 
came  with  his  train  of  counts  and  barons  to  the  place,  and 
the  Queen  followed  him,  though  great  with  child,  to  see 
what  there  would  be.  The  six  citizens  knelt  down  at  once 
before  the  King,  and  Master  Eustache  spake  thus  : — 
'  Gentle  King,  here  we  be  six  who  have  been  of  the  old 
bourgeoisie  of  Calais  and  great  merchants ;  we  bring  you 
the  keys  of  the  town  and  castle  of  Calais,  and  render  them 
to  you  at  your  pleasure.  We  set  ourselves  in  such  wise 
as  you  see  purely  at  your  will,  to  save  the  remnant  of 
the  people  that  has  suffered  much  pain.  So  may  you  have 
pity  and  mercy  on  us  for  your  high  nobleness'  sake.' 
Certes,  there  was  then  in  that  place  neither  lord  nor 
knight  that  wept  not  for  pity,  nor  who  could  speak  for 
pity ;  but  the  King  had  his  heart  so  hardened  by  wrath 
that  for  a  long  while  he  could  not  reply ;  then  he  com- 
manded to  cut  off  their  heads.  All  the  knights  and  lords 
prayed  him  with  tears,  as  much  as  they  could,  to  have 
pity  on  them,  but  he  would  not  hear.  Then  spoke  the 
gentle  knight,  Master  Walter  de  Maunay,  and  said,  '  Ha, 
gentle  sire  !  bridle  your  wrath  ;  you  have  the  renown  and 
good  fame  of  all  gentleness  ;  do  not  a  thing  whereby  men 
can  speak  any  villany  of  you  !  If  you  have  no  pity,  all 
men  will  say  that  you  have  a  heart  full  of  all  cruelty  to 
put  these  good  citizens  to  death  that  of  their  own  will  are 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  425 

come  to  render  themselves  to  you  to  save  the  remnant  of  CHAP.  II. 
the  people.'  At  this  point  the  King  changed  countenance  Edward 
with  wrath,  and  said  '  Hold  your  peace,  Master  Walter ! 
it  shall  be  none  otherwise.  Call  the  headsman.  They  of 
Calais  have  made  so  many  of  my  men  die,  that  they  must 
die  themselves ! '  Then  did  the  noble  Queen  of  England 
a  deed  of  noble  lowliness,  seeing  she  was  great  with  child, 
and  wept  so  tenderly  for  pity  that  she  could  no  longer 
stand  upright ;  therefore  she  cast  herself  on  her  knees 
before  her  lord  the  King  and  spake  on  this  wise :  '  Ah, 
gentle  sire,  from  the  day  that  I  passed  over  sea  in  great 
peril,  as  you  know,  I  have  asked  for  nothing :  nowr  pray  I 
and  beseech  you,  with  folded  hands,  for  the  love  of  our 
Lady's  Son  to  have  mercy  upon  them.'  The  gentle  King 
waited  a  while  before  speaking,  and  looked  on  the  Queen 
as  she  knelt  before  him  bitterly  weeping.  Then  began 
his  heart  to  soften  a  little,  and  he  said,  '  Lady,  I  would 
rather  you  had  been  otherwhere ;  you  pray  so  tenderly 
that  I  dare  not  refuse  you ;  and  though  I  do  it  against  my 
will,  nevertheless  take  them,  I  give  them  to  you.'  Then 
took  he  the  six  citizens  by  the  halters  and  delivered  them 
to  the  Queen,  and  released  from  death  all  those  of  Calais 
for  the  love  of  her ;  and  the  good  lady  bade  them  clothe 
the  six  burgesses  and  make  them  good  cheer." 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  PEASANT  REVOLT. 
1347—1381. 

Edward  STILL  in  the  vigour  of  manhood,  for  he  was  but  thiru\- 
ihe  Third.  fiv^  g^ward  the  Third  stood  at  the  height  of  his  re- 
nown. He  had  won  the  greatest  victory  of  his  age. 
France,  till  now  the  first  of  European  states,  was  broken 
and  dashed  from  her  pride  of  place  at  a  single  blow.  The 
kingdom  seemed  to  lie  at  Edward's  mercy,  for  Guienne 
was  recovered,  Flanders  was  wholly  on  his  side,  and 
Brittany,  where  the  capture  of  Charles  of  Blois  secured  the 
success  of  his  rival  and  the  English  party  which  supported 
him,  opened  the  road  to  Paris.  At  home  his  government 
was  popular,  and  Scotland,  the  one  enemy  he  had  to  dread, 
was  bridled  by  the  capture  of  her  King.  How  great  his 
renown  was  in  Europe  was  seen  in  1347,  when  on  the 
death  of  Lewis  of  Bavaria  the  electors  offered  him  the 
Imperial  Crown.  Edward  was  in  truth  a  general  of  a 
high  order,  and  he  had  shown  himself  as  consummate  a 
strategist  in  the  campaign  as  a  tactician  in  the  field.  But 
to  the  world  about  him  he  was  even  more  illustrious  as 
the  foremost  representative  of  the  showy  chivalry  of  his 
day.  He  loved  the  pomp  of  tournaments ;  he  revived  the 
Round  Table  of  the  fabled  Arthur;  he  celebrated  his 
victories  by  the  creation  of  a  new  order  of  knighthood. 
He  had  varied  the  sterner  operations  of  the  siege  of  Calais 
by  a  hand  to  hand  combat  with  one  of  the  bravest  of  the 
French  knights.  A  naval  picture  of  Froissart  sketches 


BOOK  iv.]         THE  PAELIAMENT.     1307—1461.  427 

Edward  for  us  as  he  sailed  to  meet  a  Spanish  fleet  CHAP.  I1L 
which  was  sweeping  the  narrow  seas.  We  see  the  King  ^ 
sitting  on  deck  in  his  jacket  of  black  velvet,  his  head  Jtevoitf 
covered  by  a  black  beaver  hat  "  which  became  him  well,"  isl- 
and calling  on  Sir  John  Chaudos  to  troll  out  the  songs  1381- 
he  had  brought  with  him  from  Germany,  till  the  Spanish 
ships  heave  in  sight  and  a  furious  fight  begins  which 
ends  in  a  victory  that  leaves  Edward  "  King  of  the  Seas." 
But  beneath  all  this  glitter  of  chivalry  lay  the  subtle, 
busy  diplomatist.  None  of  our  Kings  was  so  restless  a' 
negotiator.  From  the  first  hour  of  Edward's  rule  the 
threads  of  his  diplomacy  ran  over  Europe  in  almost  in- 
extricable confusion.  And  to  all  who  dealt  with  him  he 
was  equally  false  and  tricky.  Emperor  was  played  off 
against  Pope  and  Pope  against  Emperor,  the  friendship  of 
the  Flemish  towns  was  adroitly  used  to  put  a  pressure  on 
their  counts,  the  national  wrath  against  the  exactions  of  the 
Eoman  see  was  employed  to  bridle  the  French  sympathies 
of  the  court  of  Avignon,  and  when  the  statutes  which  it 
produced  had  served  their  purpose  they  were  set  aside  for 
a  bargain  in  which  King  and  Pope  shared  the  plunder  of 
the  Church  between  them.  His  temper  was  as  false  in 
his  dealings  with  his  people  as  in  his  dealings  with  the 
European  powers.  Edward  aired  to  country  and  parlia- 
ment his  English  patriotism.  "  Above  all  other  lands  and 
realms  "  he  made  his  chancellor  say  "  the  King  had  most 
tenderly  at  heart  his  land  of  England,  a  land  more  full  of 
delight  and  honour  and  profit  to  him  than  any  other." 
His  manners  were  popular;  he  donned  on  occasion  the 
livery  of  a  city  gild ;  he  dined  with  a  London  merchant. 
His  perpetual  parliaments,  his  appeals  to  them  and  to  the 
country  at  large  for  counsel  and  aid,  seemed  to  promise  a 
ruler  who  was  absolutely  one  at  heart  with  the  people  he 
ruled.  But  when  once  Edward  passed  from  sheer  careless- 
ness and  gratification  at  the  new  source  of  wealth  which 
the  Parliament  opened  to  a  sense  of  what  its  power  really 
was  becoming,  he  showed  himself  as  jealous  of  freedom 


428 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


The 
Black 
Death 


CHAP.  III.  as  any  king  that  had  gone  before  him.  He  sold  his 
assent  to  its  demands  for  heavy  subsidies,  and  when  he 
had  pocketed  the  money  coolly  declared  the  statutes  he 
had  sanctioned  null  and  void.  The  constitutional  pro- 
gress which  was  made  during  his  reign  was  due  to  his 
absorption  in  showy  schemes  of  foreign  ambition,  to  his 
preference  for  war  and  diplomatic  intrigue  over  the  sober 
business  of  civil  administration.  The  same  shallowness 
of  temper,  the  same  showiness  and  falsehood,  ran  through 
his  personal  character.  The  King  who  was  a  model  of 
chivalry  in  his  dealings  with  knight  and  noble  showed 
himself  a  brutal  savage  to  the  burgesses  of  Calais.  Even 
the  courtesy  to  his  Queen  which  throws  its  halo  over  the 
story  of  their  deliverance  went  hand  in  hand  with  a  con- 
stant disloyalty  to  her.  When  once  Philippa  was  dead 
his  profligacy  threw  all  shame  aside.  He  paraded  a  mis- 
tress as  Queen  of  Beauty  through  the  streets  of  London, 
and  set  her  in  pomp  over  tournaments  as  the  Lady  of  the 
Sun.  The  nobles  were  quick  to  follow  their  lord's  example. 
"  In  those  days,"  writes  a  chronicler  of  vthe  time,  "  arose  a 
rumour  and  clamour  among  the  people  that  wherever  there 
was  a  tournament  there  came  a  great  concourse  of  ladies, 
of  the  most  costly  and  beautiful  but  not  of  the  best  in  the 
kingdom,  sometimes  forty  and  fifty  in  number,  as  if  they 
were  a  part  of  the  tournament,  ladies  clad  in  diverse  and 
wonderful  male  apparel,  in  parti-coloured  tunics,  with 
short  caps  and  bands  wound  cord-wise  round  their  heads, 
and  girdles  bound  with  gold  and  silver,  and  daggers  in 
pouches  across  their  body.  And  thus  they  rode  on  choice 
coursers  to  the  place  of  tourney ;  and  so  spent  and  wasted 
their  goods  and  vexed  their  bodies  with  scurrilous  wanton- 
ness that  the  murmurs  of  the  people  sounded  everywhere. 
But  they  neither  feared  God  nor  blushed  at  the  chaste 
voice  of  the  people." 

The  "  chaste  voice  of  the  people  "  was  soon  to  grow  into 
the  stern  moral  protest  of  the  Lollards,  but  for  the  moment 
all  murmurs  were  hushed  bv  the  King's  success.  The 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  429 

truce    which    followed   the   capture  of   Calais  seemed   a  CHAP.  IIL 
mere  rest  in  the  career  of  victories  which  opened  before       T^ 
Edward.     England  was  drunk  with  her  glory  and  with  the     ifevoit* 
hope  of  plunder.     The  cloths  of  Caen  had  been  brought     1347- 
after  the  sack  of  that  town  to  London.     "  There  was  no     13J^}- 
woman,"   says  Walsingham,  "  who  had  not  got  garments, 
furs,  feather-beds,  and  utensils  from  the  spoils  of  Calais 
and  other  foreign  cities."     The  Court  revelled  in  gorgeous 
tournaments  and  luxury  of  dress ;  and  the  establishment 
in  13-46  of  the  Order  of  the  Garter  which  found  its  home 
in  the  new  castle  that  Edward  was  raising  at  Windsor 
marked  the  highest  reach  of  the  spurious  "  Chivalry  "  of 
the  day.     But  it  was  at  this  moment  of  triumph  that  the 
whole  colour  of  Edward's  reign  suddenly  changed.     The 
most  terrible  plague  the  world  has  ever  witnessed  advanced 
from  the  East,  and  after  devastating  Europe  from  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Baltic  swooped  at  the  close  of 
1348  upon  Britain.     The  traditions  of  its  destructiveness 
and  the  panic-struck  words  of  the  statutes  passed  after  its 
visitation  have  been  amply  justified  by  modern  research. 
Of  the  three  or  four  millions  who  then  formed  the  popu- 
lation of  England  more  than  one  half  were  swept   away 
in  its  repeated  visitations.     Its  ravages  were  fiercest  in  the 
greater  towns  where  filthy  and  undrained  streets  afforded 
a  constant  haunt  to  leprosy  and  fever.     In    the   burial 
ground  which  the  piety  of  Sir  Walter  Maunay  purchased 
for  the  citizens  of  London,  a  spot  whose  site  was  afterwards 
marked  by  the  Charter  House,  more  than  fifty  thousand 
corpses  are  said  to  have  been  interred.    Thousands  of  people 
perished  at  Norwich,    while    in    Bristol  the  living  were 
hardly  able  to  bury  the  dead.     But  the  Black  Death  fell 
on  the  villages  almost  as  fiercely  as  on  the  towns.     More 
than  one-half  of  the  priests  of  Yorkshire  are  known  to 
have  perished ;  in  the  diocese  of  Norwich  two-thirds  of 
the  parishes  changed  their  incumbents.     The  whole  organ- 
ization of  labour  was  thrown  out  of  gear.     The  scarcity  of 
hands  produced  by  the  terrible  mortality  made  it  difficult 


430  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 
i 

CHAP.  III.  for  villeins  to  perform  the  services  due  for  their  lands, 

^~  and  only  a  temporary  abandonment  of  half  the  rent  by 

Peasant    ^he  landowners  induced  the  farmers  of  their  demesnes  to 
Kevoit. 

1347  refrain  from  the  abandonment  of  their  farms.  For  a  time 
i38i.  cultivation  became  impossible.  "  The  sheep  and  cattle 
strayed  through  the  fields  and  corn,"  says  a  contemporary, 
"  and  there  were  none  left  who  could  drive  them."  Even 
when  the  first  burst  of  panic  was  over,  the  sudden  rise  of 
wages  consequent  on  the  enormous  diminution  in  the 
supply  of  labour,  though  accompanied  by  a  correspond- 
ing rise  in  the  price  of  food,  rudely  disturbed  the  course 
of  industrial  employments.  Harvests  rotted  on  the  ground 
and  fields  were  left  untilled  not  merely  from  scarcity  of 
hands  but  from  the  strife  which  now  for  the  first  time 
revealed  itself  between  capital  and  labour. 

Its  Social  Nowhere  was  the  effect  of  the  Black  Death  so  keenly 
Results,  felt  as  in  its  bearing  on  the  social  revolution  which  had 
been  steadily  going  on  for  a  century  past  throughout  the 
country.  At  the  moment  we  have  reached  the  lord  of  a 
manor 'had  been  reduced  over  a  large  part  of  England  to 
the  position  of  a  modern  landlord,  receiving  a  rental  in 
money  from  his  tenants  and  supplying  their  place  in  the 
cultivation  of  his  demesne  lands  by  paid  labourers.  He 
was  driven  by  the  progress  of  enfranchisement  to  rely  for 
the  purposes  of  cultivation  on  the  supply  of  hired  labour, 
and  hitherto  this  supply  had  been  abundant  and  cheap. 
But  with  the  ravages  of  the  Black  Death  and  the  decrease 
of  population  labour  at  once  became  scarce  and  dear. 
There  was  a  general  rise  of  wages,  and  the  farmers  of  the 
country  as  well  as  the  wealthier  craftsmen  of  the  town 
saw  themselves  threatened  with  ruin  by  what  seemed  to 
their  age  the  extravagant  demands  of  the  labour  class. 
Meanwhile  the  country  was  torn  with  riot  and  disorder. 
An  outbreak  of  lawless  self-indulgence  which  followed 
everywhere  in  the  wake  of  the  plague  told  especially  upon 
the  "  landless  men,"  workers  wandering  in  search  of  work 
who  found  themselves  for  tha  first  time  masters  of  the 


IV.]  THE  PABLIAMENT.     1307—1401.  431 

labour  market ;  and  the  wandering  labourer  or  artizan  CHAP.  111. 
turned  easily  into  the  "  sturdy  beggar,"  or  the  bandit  of  the 
woods.  A  summary  redress  for  these  evils  was  at  once 
provided  by  the  Crown  in  a  royal  proclamation.  "  Because  1347- 
a  great  part  of  the  people,"  runs  this  ordinance,  "  and  prin-  1381' 
cipally  of  labourers  and  servants,  is  dead  of  the  plague, 
some,  seeing  the  need  of  their  lords  and  the  scarcity  of 
servants,  are  unwilling  to  serve  unless  they  receive  ex- 
cessive wages,  and  others  are  rather  begging  in  idleness 
than  supporting  themselves  by  labour,  we  have  ordained 
that  any  able-bodied  man  or  woman,  of  whatsoever  con- 
dition, free  or  serf,  under  sixty  years  of  age,  not  living  of 
merchandize  nor  following  a  trade  nor  having  of  his  own 
wherewithal  to  live,  either  his  own  land  with  the  culture 
of  which  he  could  occupy  himself,  and  not  serving  another, 
shall  if  so  required  serve  another  for  such  wages  as  was  the 
custom  in  the  twentieth  year  of  our  reign  or  five  or  six 
years  before." 

It  was  the  failure  of  this  ordinance  to  effect  its  ends  Statute  of 
which  brought  about  at  the  close  of  1349  the  passing 
of  the  Statute  of  Labourers.  "Every  man  or  woman," 
runs  this  famous  provision,  "  of  whatsoever  condition,  free 
or  bond,  able  in  body,  and  within  the  age  of  threescore 
years,  .  .  .  and  not  having  of  his  own  whereof  he  may 
live,  nor  land  of  his  own  about  the  tillage  of  which  he 
may  occupy  himself,  and  not  serving  any  other,  shall  be 
bound  to  serve  the  employer  who  shall  require  him  to  do 
so,  and  shall  take  only  the  wages  which  were  accustomed 
to  be  taken  in  the  neighbourhood  where  he  is  bound  to 
serve  "  two  years  before  the  plague  began.  A  refusal  to  obey 
was  punished  by  imprisonment.  But  sterner  measures 
were  soon  found  to  be  necessary.  Not  only  was  the  price 
of  labour  fixed  by  the  Parliament  of  1350  but  the  labour 
class  was  once  more  tied  to  the  soil.  The  labourer  was 
forbidden  to  quit  the  parish  where  he  lived  in  search  of 
better  paid  employment ;  if  he  disobeyed  he  became  a 
"  fugitive,"  and  subject  to  imprisonment  at  the  hands  of 


432 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  justices  of  the  peace.  To  enforce  such  a  law  literally 
must  have  been  impossible,  for  corn  rose  to  so  high  a 
price  that  a  day's  labour  at  the  old  wages  would  not  have 
purchased  wheat  enough  for  a  man's  support.  But  -the 
landowners  did  not  flinch  from  the  attempt.  The  repeated 
re-enactment  of  the  law  shows  the  difficulty  of  applying 
it  and  the  stubbornness  of  the  struggle  which  it  brought 
about.  The  fines  and  forfeitures  which  were  levied  for 
infractions  of  its  provisions  formed  a  large  source  of  royal 
revenue,  but  so  ineffectual  were  the  original  penalties  that 
the  runaway  labourer  was  at  last  ordered  to  be  branded  with 
a  hot  iron  on  the  forehead,  while  the  harbouring  of  serfs  in 
towns  was  rigorously  put  down.  Nor  was  it  merely  the 
existing  class  of  free  labourers  which  was  attacked  by  this 
reactionary  movement.  The  increase  of  their  numbers  by 
a  commutation  of  labour  services  for  money  payments  was 
suddenly  checked,  and  the  ingenuity  of  the  lawyers  who 
were  employed  as  stewards  of  each  manor  was  exercized  in 
striving  to  restore  to  the  landowners  that  customary 
labour  whose  loss  was  now  severely  felt.  Manumissions 
and  exemptions  which  had  passed  without  question  were 
cancelled  on  grounds  of  informality,  and  labour  services 
from  which  they  held  themselves  freed  by  redemption 
were  again  demanded  from  the  villeins.  The  attempt  was 
the  more  galling  that  the  cause  had  to  be  pleaded  in  the 
manor-court  itself,  and  to  be  decided  by  the  very  officer 
whose  interest  it  was  to  give  judgement  in  favour  of  his  lord. 
We  can  see  the  growth  of  a  fierce  spirit  of  resistance  through 
the  statutes  which  strove  in  vain  to  repress  it.  In  the 
towns,  where  the  system  of  forced  labour  was  applied  with 
even  more  rigour  than  in  the  country,  strikes  and  combina- 
tions became  frequent  among  the  lower  craftsmen.  In  the 
country  the  free  labourers  found  allies  in  the  villeins  whose 
freedom  from  manorial  service  was  questioned.  These  were 
often  men  of  position  and  substance,  and  throughout  the 
eastern  counties  the  gatherings  of  "  fugitive  serfs  "  were 
supported  by  an  organized  resistance  and  by  large 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  433 

contributions   of    money  on   the  part  of    the   wealthier  CHAP.  III. 
tenantry.  ^ 

With  plague,  famine,  and  social  strife  in  the  land,  it  was  Revolt 
no  time  for  reaping  the  fruits  even  of  such  a  victory  as  1347- 
Cre9y.  Luckily  for  England  the  pestilence  had  fallen  as  1381- 
heavily  on  her  foe  as  on  herself.  A  common  suffering  and  Senegal 
exhaustion  forced  both  countries  to  a  truce,  and  though  de-  jj-cn 
sultory  fighting  went  on  along  the  Breton  and  Aquitanian 
borders,  the  peace  which  was  thus  secured  lasted  with  brief 
intervals  of  fighting  for  seven  years.  It  was  not  till  1355  j 
that  the  failure  of  a  last  effort  to  turn  the  truce  into  a  final 
peace  again  drove  Edward  into  war.  The  campaign  opened 
with  a  brilliant  prospect  of  success.  Charles  the  Bad,  King 
of  Navarre,  held  as  a  prince  of  descent  from  the  house  of 
Valois  large  fiefs  in  Normandy ;  and  a  quarrel  springing 
suddenly  up  between  him  and  John,  who  had  now  succeeded 
his  father  Philip  on  the  throne  of  France,  Charles  offered 
to  put  his  fortresses  into  Edward's  hands.  Master  of 
Cherbourg,  Avranches,  Pontauderner,  Evreux  and  Meulan, 
Mantes,  Mortain,  Pontoise,  Charles  held  in  his  hands  the 
keys  of  France  ;  and  Edward  grasped  at  the  opportunity 
of  delivering  a  crushing  blow.  Three  armies  were  prepared 
to  act  in  Normandy,  Britanny,  and  Guienne.  But  the  first 
two,  with  Edward  and  Henry  of  Derby,  who  had  been 
raised  to  the  dukedom  of  Lancaster,  at  their  head,  were 
detained  by  contrary  winds,  and  Charles,  despairing  of 
their  arrival,  made  peace  with  John.  Edward  made  his  way 
to  Calais  to  meet  the  tidings  of  this  desertion  and  to  be 
called  back  to  England  by  news  of  a  recapture  of  Berwick 
by  the  Scots.  But  his  hopes  of  Norman  co-operation  were 
revived  in  1356.  The  treachery  of  John,  his  seizure  of  the 
King  of  Navarre,  and  his  execution  of  the  Count  of  Harcourt 
who  was  looked  upon  as  the  adviser  of  Charles  in  his  policy 
of  intrigue,  stirred  a  general  rising  throughout  Normandy. 
Edward  at  once  despatched  troops  under  the  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster to  its  support.  But  the  insurgents  were  soon  forced 
to  fall  back.  Conscious  of  the  danger  to  which  an  English 


434 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE         [BOOK 


occupation  of  Normandy  would  expose  him,  John  hastened 
with  a  large  army  to  the  west,  drove  Lancaster  to  Cher- 
bourg, took  Evreux,  and  besieged  Breteuil. 

Here  however  his  progress   was  suddenly  checked  by 
from  the  south.     The  Black  Prince,  as  the  hero  of 


The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


news 


Oec,y  was   called,  had  landed    in    Guienne   during   the 
preceding  year  and  won  a  disgraceful  success.     Unable  to 
pay  his  troops,  he  staved  off  their  demands  by  a  campaign 
of  sheer  pillage.     While  plague  and  war  and  the  anarchy 
which  sprang  up  under  the  weak  government  of  John  were 
bringing  ruin  on  the  northern  and  central  provinces  of 
France,  the  south  remained  prosperous  and  at  peace.     The 
young  prince  led  his  army  of  freebooters  up  the  Garonne 
into  "  what  was  before  one  of  the  fat  countries  of  the  world, 
the  people  good  and  simple,  who  did  not  know  what  war 
was;  indeed  no  war  had  been  waged  against  them  till  the 
Prince  came.     The  English  and  Gascons  found  the  country 
full  and  gay,  the  rooms  adorned  with  carpets  and  draperies, 
the  caskets  and  chests  full  of  fair  jewels.    But  nothing  was 
safe  from  these  robbers.     They,  and  especially  the  Gascons, 
who  are  very  greedy,  carried  off  everything."     Glutted  by 
the  sack  of  Carcassone  and  Narbonne  the  plunderers  fell 
back  to  Bordeaux,  "  their  horses  so  laden  with  spoil  that 
they  could  hardly  move."     Worthier  work  awaited   the 
Black  Prince  in  the  following  year.     In  the  plan  of  cam- 
paign for  1 356  it  had  been  arranged  that  he  should  march 
upon  the  Loire,  and  there  unite  with  a  force  under  the 
Duke  of  Lancaster  which  was  to  land  in  Britanny  and 
push  rapidly  into  the  heart  of  France.     Delays  however 
hindered  the  Prince  from  starting  from  Bordeaux  till  July, 
and  when  his  march  brought  him  to  the  Loire  the  plan  of 
campaign  had  already  broken  down.     The    outbreak    in 
Normandy  had  tempted  the  English  Council  to  divert  the 
force  under  Lancaster  from  Britanny  to  that  province  ;  and 
the  Duke  was  now  at  Cherbourg,  hard  pressed  by  the  French 
army  under  John.     But  if  its  original  purpose  was  foiled, 
the  march  of  the  Black  Prince  on  the  Loire  served  still  more 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


435 


The 

Peasant 
Kevolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


effectively  the  English  cause.  His  advance  pointed  straight  CHAP.  Ill 
upon  Paris,  and  again  as  in  the  Cre9y  campaign  John 
was  forced  to  leave  all  for  the  protection  of  the  capital. 
Hasty  marches  brought  the  King  to  the  Loire  while  Prince 
Edward  still  lay  at  Yierzon  on  the  Cher.  Unconscious  of 
John's  designs,  he  wasted  some  days  in  the  capture  of 
Komorantin  while  the  French  troops  were  crossing  the  Loire 
along  its  course  from  Oilcans  to  Tours  and  John  with 
the  advance  was  hurrying  through  Loches  upon  Poitiers  in 
pursuit,  as  he  supposed,  of  the  retreating  Englishmen. 
But  the  movement  of  the  French  army,  near  as  it  was, 
was  unknown  in  the  English  camp;  and  when  the  news 
of  it  forced  the  Black  Prince  to  order  a  retreat  the  enemy 
was  already  far  ahead  of  him.  Edward  reached  the  fields 
north  of  Poitiers  to  find  his  line  of  retreat  cut  off  and  a 
French  army  of  sixty  thousand  men  interposed  between  his 
forces  and  Bordeaux. 

If  the  Prince  had  shown  little  ability  in  his  manage-  Poitiers. 
ment  of  the  campaign,  he  showed  tactical  skill  in  the  fight 
which  was  now  forced  on  him.  On  the  nineteenth  of 
September  he  took  a  strong  position  in  the  fields  of  Mau- 
pertuis,  where  his  front  was  covered  by  thick  hedges  and 
approachable  only  by  a  deep  and  narrow  lane  which  ran 
between  vineyards.  The  vineyards  and  hedges  he  lined 
with  bowmen,  and  drew  up  his  small  body  of  men-at-arms 
at  the  point  where  the  lane  opened  upon  the  higher  plain 
on  which  he  was  himself  encamped.  Edward's  force  num- 
bered only  eight  thousand  men,  and  the  danger  was  great 
enough  to  force  him  to  offer  in  exchange  for  a  free  retreat 
the  surrender  of  his  prisoners  and  of  the  places  he  had 
taken,  with  an  oath  not  to  fight  against  France  for  seven 
years  to  come.  His  offers  however  were  rejected,  and  the 
battle  opened  with  a  charge  of  three  hundred  French  knights 
up  the  narrow  lane.  But  the  lane  wras  soon  choked  with 
men  and  horses,  while  the  front  ranks  of  the  advancing 
army  fell  back  before  a  galling  fire  of  arrows  from  the 
In  this  moment  of  confusion  a  body  of  English 


hedgerows. 


436 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III.  horsemen,  posted  unseen  by  their  opponents  on  a  hill  to 
^  the  right,  charged  suddenly  on  the  French  flank,  and  the 
Bevoit*  Prince  watching  the  disorder  which  was  caused  by  the 
1347-  repulse  and  surprize  fell  boldly  on  their  front.  The  steady 
1{^_1'  shot  of  the  English  archers  completed  the  panic  produced 
by  this  sudden  attack.  The  first  French  line  was  driven 
in,  and  on  its  rout  the  second,  a  force  of  sixteen  thousand 
men,  at  once  broke  in  wild  terror  and  fled  from  the  field. 
John  still  held  his  ground  with  the  knights  of  the  reserve, 
whom  he  had  unwisely  ordered  to  dismount  from  their 
horses,  till  a  charge  of  the  Black  Prince  with  two  thousand 
lances  threw  this  last  body  into  confusion.  The  French 
King  was  taken,  desperately  fighting  ;  and  when  his  army 
poured  back  at  noon  in  utter  rout  to  the  gates  of  Poitiers 
eight  thousand  of  their  number  had  fallen  on  the  field, 
three  thousand  in  the  flight,  and  two  thousand  men-at- 
arms,  with  a  crowd  of  nobles,  were  taken  prisoners.  The 
royal  captive  entered  London  in  triumph,  mounted  on  a 
big  white  charger,  while  the  Prince  rode  by  his  side  on  a 
little  black  hackney  to  the  palace  of  the  Savoy  which  was 
chosen  as  John's  dwelling,  and  a  truce  for  two  years  seemed 
to  give  healing-time  to  France. 

With  the  Scots  Edward  the  Third  had  less  good  fortune. 
Recalled  from  Calais  by  their  seizure  of  Berwick,  the 
King  induced  Balliol  to  resign  into  his  hands  his  shadowy 
sovereignty,  and  in  the  spring  of  1356  marched  upon 
Edinburgh  with  an  overpowering  army,  harrying  and 
burning  as  he  marched.  But  the  Scots  refused  an  en- 
gagement, a  fleet  sent  with  provisions  was  beaten  off  by 
a  storm,  and'  the  famine-stricken  army  was  forced  to 
fall  rapidly  back  on  the  border  in  a  disastrous  retreat. 
The  trial  convinced  Edward  that  the  conquest  of  Scotland 
was  impossible,  and  by  a  rapid  change  of  policy  which 
marks  the  man  he  resolved  to  seek  the  friendship  of  the 
country  he  had  wasted  so  long.  David  Bruce  was  released 
on  promise  of  ransom,  a  truce  concluded  for  ten  years, 
and  the  prohibition  of  trade  between  the  two  kingdoms 


Edward 
and  the 
Scots. 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


437 


1347- 
1381. 


put  an  end  to.      But  the  fulness  of   this    reconciliation  CHAP.  III. 
screened  a  dexterous  intrigue.     David  was  childless  and       ^ 
Edward  availed  himself  of  the  difficulty  which  the  young     Revolt* 
King  experienced  in  finding  means  of  providing  the  sum 
demanded  for  his  ransom  to  bring  him  over  to  a  proposal 
which  would  have  united  the  two  countries  for  ever.     The 
scheme  however  was  carefully  concealed ;  and  it  was  not 
till  1363  that  David  proposed  to  his  Parliament  to  set  aside 
on  his  death  the  claims  of  the  Steward  of  Scotland  to  his 
crown,  and  to   choose  Edward's  third  son,  Lionel,  Duke 
of  Clarence,  as  his  successor.     Though  the  proposal  was 
scornfully   rejected,    negotiations   were     still    carried    on 
between  the  two  Kings  for  the  realization  of  this  project, 
and  were  probably  only  put  an  end  to  by  the  calamities 
of  Edward's  later  years. 

In  France  misery  and  misgovernment  seemed  to  be  Peace  of 
doing  Edward's  work  more  effectively  than  arms.  The  Bretigny. 
miserable  country  found  no  rest  in  itself.  Its  routed 
soldiery  turned  into  free  companies  of  bandits,  while  the 
lords  captured  at  Creqy  or  Poitiers  procured  the  sums 
needed  for  their  ransom  by  extortion  from  the  peasantry. 
The  reforms  demanded  by  the  States-General  which  met  in 
this  agony  of  France  were  frustrated  by  the  treachery  of  the 
Ptegent,  John's  eldest  son  Charles,  Duke  of  Normandy,  till 
Paris,  impatient  of  his  weakness  and  misrule,  rose  in  arms 
against  the  Crown.  The  peasants  too,  driven  mad  by 
oppression  and  famine,  rose  in  wild  insurrection,  butchering 
their  lords  and  firing  their  castles  over  the  whole  face  of 
France.  Paris  and  the  Jacquerie,  as  this  peasant  rising 
was  called,  were  at  last  crushed  by  treachery  and  the 
sword :  and,  exhausted  as  it  was,  France  still  backed  the 
Eegent  in  rejecting  a  treaty  of  peace  by  which  John  in 
1359  proposed  to  buy  his  release.  By  this  treaty  Maine. 
Touraine  and  Poitou  in  the  south,  Normandy,  Guisnes. 
Ponthieu,  and  Calais  in  the  west  were  ceded  to  the  English 
King.  On  its  rejection  Edward  in  1360  poured  ravaging 
over  the  wasted  land.  Famine  however  proved  its  best 

VOL.  I.— 29 


438  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III.  defence.  "  I  could  not  believe,"  said  Petrarch  of  this  time, 
^  "  that  this  was  the  same  France  which  I  had  seen,  so  rich 
Revolt*  an^  flourishing.  Nothing  presented  itself  to  my  eyes  but  a 
1347-  fearful  solitude,  an  utter  poverty,  laud  uncultivated,  houses 
issi.  m  rilins  Even  the  neighbourhood  of  Paris  showed  every- 
where marks  of  desolation  and  conflagration.  The  streets 
.  are  deserted,  the  roads  overgrown  with  weeds,  the  whole 
is  a  vast  solitude."  The  utter  desolation  forced  Edward 
to  carry  with  him  an  immense  train  of  provisions,  and 
thousands  of  baggage  waggons  with  mills,  ovens,  forges, 
and  fishing-boats,  formed  a  long  train  which  streamed 
for  six  miles  behind  his  army.  After  a  fruitless  attempt 
upon  Piheims  he  forced  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  to  con- 
clude a  treaty  with  him  by  pushing  forward  to  Tonnerre, 
and  then  descending  the  Seine  appeared  with  his. army 
before  Paris.  But  the  wasted  country  forbade  a  siege, 
and  Edward  after  summoning  the  town  in  vain  was 
forced  to  fall  back  for  subsistence  on  the  Loire.  It  was 
during  this  march  that  the  Duke  of  Normandy's  envoys 
overtook  him  with  proposals  of  peace.  The  misery  of  the 
land  had  at  last  bent  Charles  to  submission  and  in  May 
a  treaty  was  concluded  at  Bretigny,  a  small  place  to  the 
eastward  of  Chartres.  By  this  treaty  the  English  King 
waived  his  claims  on  the  crown  of  France  and  on  the 
Duchy  of  Normandy.  On  the  other  hand,  his  Duchy  of 
Aquitaine,  which  included  Gascouy,  Guienne,  Poitou,  and 
Saintonge,  the  Limousin  and  the  Angoumois,  Perigord  and 
the  counties  of  Bigorre  and  Bouerque,  was  not  only  re- 
stored but  freed  from  its  obligations  as  a  French  fief  and 
granted  in  full  sovereignty  with  Ponthieu,  Edward's 
heritage  from  the  second  wife  of  Edward  the  First,  as  well 
as  with  Guisnes  and  his  new  conquest  of  Calais. 

,,.          ,,       The  Peace  of  Bretigny  set  its  seal  upon  Edward's  glory. 

^England.  But  within  England  itself  the  misery  of  the  people  was 
deepening  every  hour.  Men  believed  the  world  to  be 
ending,  and  the  judgement  day  to  be  near.  A  few  months 
after  the  Peace  came  a  fresh  swoop  of  the  Black  Death, 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  439 

carrying  off  the  Duke  of  Lancaster.  The  repressive  CHAP.  111. 
measures  of  Parliament  and  the  landowners  only  widened  ^ 
the  social  chasm  which  parted  employer  from  employed,  i^voit1 
We  can  see  the  growth  of  a  fierce  spirit  of  resistance  both  \34J- 
to  the  reactionary  efforts  which  were  being  made  to  bring  1381 
back  labour  services  and  to  the  enactments  which  again 
bound  labour  to  the  soil  in  statutes  which  strove  in  vain  to 
repress  the  strikes  and  combi nations  wrhich  became  frequent 
in  the  towns  and  the  more  formidable  gatherings  of  villeins 
and  "  fugitive  serfs  "  in  the  country  at  large.  A  statute  of 
later  date  throws  light  on  the  nature  of  the  resistance  of 
the  last.  It  tells  us  that  "  villeins  and  holders  of  land  in 
villeinage  withdrew  their  customs  and  services  from  their 
lords,  having  attached  themselves  to  other  persons  who  main- 
tained and  abetted  them,  and  who  under  colour  of  exempli- 
fications from  Domesday  of  the  manors  and  villages  where 
they  dwelt  claimed  to  be  quit  of  all  manner  of  services 
either  of  their  body  or  of  their  lands,  and  would  suffer  no 
distress  or  other  course  of  justice  to  be  taken  against  them ; 
the  villeins  aiding  their  maintainers  by  threatening  the 
officers  of  their  lords  with  peril  to  life  and  limb  as  well 
by  open  assemblies  as  by  confederacies  to  support  each 
other."  It  would  seem  not  only  as  if  the  villein  was 
striving  to  resist  the  reactionary  tendency  of  the  lords  of 
manors  to  regain  his  labour  service  but  that  in  the  general 
overturning  of  social  institutions  the  copyholder  was 
struggling  to  make  himself  a  freeholder,  and  the  farmer  to 
be  recognized  as  proprietor  of  the  demesne  he  held  on 
lease. 

A  more  terrible  outcome  of  the  general  suffering  was       jofa 
seen  in  a  new  revolt  against  the  whole  system  of  social      Ball 
inequality  which  had  till  then  passed  unquestioned  as  the 
divine  order  of  the  world.     The  Peace  was  hardly  signed 
when  the  cry  of  the  poor  found  a  terrible  utterance  in  the 
words  of  "  a  mad  priest  of  Kent "  as  the  courtly  Froissart 
calls  him,  who  for  twenty  years  to  come  found  audience 
for  his  sermons  in  spite  of  interdict  and  imprisonment  in 


440 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  the  stout  yeomen  who  gathered  round  him  in  the  church- 
yards of  Kent.  "  Mad  "  as  the  landowners  held  him  to 
be,  it  was  in  the  preaching  of  John  Ball  that  England 
first  listened  to  a  declaration  of  the  natural  equality 
and  rights  of  man.  "  Good  people,"  cried  the  preacher, 
"  things  will  never  be  well  in  England  so  long  as  goods 
be  not  in  common,  and  so  long  as  there  be  villeins  and 
gentlemen.  By  what  right  are  they  whom  we  call  lords 
greater  folk  than  we  ?  On  what  grounds  have  they 
deserved  it  ?  Why  do  they  hold  us  in  serfage  ?  If  we 
all  came  of  the  same  father  and  mother,  of  Adam  and 
Eve,  how  can  they  say  or  prove  that  they  are  better  than 
we,  if  it  be  not  that  they  make  us  gain  for  them  by  our 
toil  what  they  spend  in  their  pride  ?  They  are  clothed  in 
velvet  and  warm  in  their  furs  and  their  ermines,  while  we 
are  covered  with  rags.  They  have  wine  and  spices  and 
fair  bread  ;  and  we  oat-cake  and  straw,  and  water  to  drink. 
They  have  leisure  and  fine  houses ;  we  have  pain  and 
labour,  the  rain  and  the  wind  in  the  fields.  And  yet  it  is 
of  us  and  of  our  toil  that  these  men  hold  their  state."  It 
was  the  tyranny  of  property  that  then  as  ever  roused  the 
defiance  of  socialism.  A  spirit  fatal  to  the  whole  system 
of  the  Middle  Ages  breathed  in  the  popular  rime  which 
condensed  the  levelling  doctrine  of  John  Ball : 

"  When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span, 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman  ? " 

William  More  impressive,  because  of  the  very  restraint  and 
Longland.  moderation  of  its  tone,  is  the  poem  in  which  William 
Longland  began  at  the  same  moment  to  embody  with 
a  terrible  fidelity  all  the  darker  and  sterner  aspects  of 
the  time,  its  social  revolt,  its  moral  and  religious  awaken- 
ing, the  misery  of  the  poor,  the  selfishness  and  corruption 
of  the  rich.  Nothing  brings  more  vividly  home  to  us 
the  social  chasm  which  in  the  fourteenth  century  severed 
the  rich  from  the  poor  than  the  contrast  between  his 
"  Complaint  of  Piers  the  Ploughman  "  and  the  "  Canter- 
bury Tales."  The  world  of  wealth  and  ease  and  laughter 


FRANCE  AT  THE   TREATY  OF  BRETIG>TY 


Rflrper  «c  Brothers.  tfew  York. 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


441 


The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


through    which    the   courtly  Chaucer   moves   with    eyes  CHAP.  in. 
downcast   as  in  a  pleasant  dream  is  a  far  off  world  of 
wrong  and  of  ungodliness  to  the  gaunt  poet  of  the  poor. 
Born  probably  in    Shropshire,  where   he  had    been   put 
to  school  and  received  minor   orders    as   a  clerk,   "  Loner 

O 

Will,"  as  Longland  was  nicknamed  from  his  tall  stature, 
found  his  way  at  an  early  age  to  London,  and  earned 
a  miserable  livelihood  there  by  singing  "  placebos "  and 
"  diriges  "  in  the  stately  funerals  of  his  day.  Men  took 
the  moody  clerk  for  a  madman ;  his  bitter  poverty 
quickened  the  defiant  pride  that  made  him  loath,  as  he 
tells  us,  to  bow  to  the  gay  lords  and  dames  who  rode 
decked  in  silver  and  minivere  along  the  Cheap  or  to 
exchange  a  "  God  save  you  "  with  the  law  sergeants  as  he 
passed  their  new  house  in  the  Temple.  His  world  is  the 
world  of  the  poor  :  he  dwells  on  the  poor  man's  life,  on  his 
hunger  and  toil,  his  rough  revelry  and  his  despair,  with  the 
narrow  intensity  of  a  man  who  has  no  outlook  beyond  it. 
The  narrowness,  the  misery,  the  monotony  of  the  life  he 
paints  reflect  themselves  in  his  verse.  It  is  only  here  and 
there  that  a  love  of  nature  or  a  grim  earnestness  of  wrath 
quickens  his  rime  into  poetry ;  there  is  not  a  gleam  of  the 
bright  human  sympathy  of  Chaucer,  of  his  fresh  delight  in 
the  gaiety,  the  tenderness,  the  daring  of  the  world  about 
him,  of  his  picturesque  sense  of  even  its  coarsest  contrasts, 
of  his  delicate  irony,  of  his  courtly  wit.  The  cumbrous 
allegory,  the  tedious  platitudes,  the  rimed  texts  from 
Scripture  which  form  the  staple  of  Longland's  work,  are 
only  broken  here  and  there  by  phrases  of  a  shrewd  common 
sense,  by  bitter  outbursts,  by  pictures  of  a  broad  Hogarthian 
humour.  What  chains  one  to  the  poem  is  its  deep  under- 
tone of  sadness  :  the  world  is  out  of  joint,  and  the  gaunt 
rimer  who  stalks  silently  along  the  Strand  has  no  faith 
in  his  power  to  put  it  right. 

Londoner  as  he  is,  Will's  fancy  flies  far  from  the  sin  and 
suffering  of  the  great  city  to  a  May-morning  in  the 
Malvern  Hills.  "  I  was  very  forwandered  and  went  me 


Pier* 
Plough- 
man- 


442  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  to  rest  under  a  broad  bank  by  a  burn  side,  and  as  I 
lay  and  leaned  and  looked  in  the  water  I  slumbered 
in  a  sleeping,  it  sweyved  (sounded)  so  merry."  Just  as 
1347-  Chaucer  gathers  the  typical  figures  of  the  world  he  saw 
13^3"  into  his  pilgrim  train,  so  the  dreamer  gathers  into  a 
wide  field  his  army  of  traders  and  chafferers,  of  hermits 
and  solitaries,  of  minstrels,  "  japers  and  jinglers,"  bidders 
and  beggars,  ploughmen  that  "in  setting  and  in  sowing 
swonken  (toil)  full  hard,"  pilgrims  "  with  their  wenches 
after,"  weavers  and  labourers,  burgess  and  bondman, 
lawyer  and  scrivener,  court-haunting  bishops,  friars,  and 
pardoners  "  parting  the  silver "  with  the  parish  priest. 
Their  pilgrimage  is  not  to  Canterbury  but  to  Truth  ;  their 
guide  to  Truth  neither  clerk  nor  priest  but  Peterkin  the 
Ploughman,  whom  they  find  ploughing  in  his  field.  He  it 
is  who  bids  the  knight  no  more  wrest  gifts  from  his  tenant 
normisdo  with  the  poor.  "  Though  he  be  thine  underling 
here,  well  may  hap  in  heaven  that  he  be  worthier  set  and 
with  more  bliss  than  thou.  .  .  .  For  in  chain  el  at  church 
churles  be  evil  to  know,  or  a  knight  from  a  knave  there." 
The  gospel  of  equality  is  backed  by  the  gospel  of  labour. 
The  aim  of  the  Ploughman  is  to  work,  and  to  make  the 
world  work  with  him.  He  warns  the  labourer  as  he 
warns  the  knight.  Hunger  is  God's  instrument  in  bring- 
ing the  idlest  to  toil,  and  Hunger  waits  to  work  her 
will  on  the  idler  and  the  waster.  On  the  eve  of  the 
great  struggle  between  wealth  and  labour,  Longland  stands 
alone  in  his  fairness  to  both,  in  his  shrewd  political  and 
religious  common  sense.  In  the  face  of  the  popular 
hatred  which  was  to  gather  round  John  of  Gaunt,  he 
paints  the  Duke  in  a  famous  apologue  as  the  cat  who, 
greedy  as  she  might  be,  at  any  rate  keeps  the  noble 
rats  from  utterly  devouring  the  mice  of  the  people. 
Though  the  poet  is  loyal  to  the  Church,  he  pro- 
claims a  righteous  life  to  be  better  than  a  host  of  indul- 
gences, and  God  sends  His  pardon  to  Pieis  when  priests 
dispute  it.  But  he  sings  as  a  man  conscious  of  his 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  443 

loneliness  and  without  hope.     It  is  only  in  a  dream  that  CHAP.  III. 

he  sees  Corruption,  "  Lady  Mead,"  brought    to  trial,  and 

the   world   repenting   at  the    preaching   of   Eeason.      In 

the  waking  life  reason  finds  no  listeners.     The  poet  him-      1347- 

self  is  looked  upon — he  tells  us  bitterly — as  a  madman.      1^1- 

There  is  a  terrible  despair  in  the  close  of  his  later  poem, 

where  the   triumph   of    Christ   is    only  followed  by  the 

reign  of  Antichrist;    where   Contrition  slumbers    amidst 

the  revel  of  Death  and  Sin ;  and  Conscience,   hard  beset 

by  Pride  and  Sloth,  rouses  himself  with  a  last  effort,  and 

seizing  his  pilgrim  staff,  wanders  over  the  world  to  find 

Piers  Ploughman. 

The  strife  indeed  which  Longland  wrould  have  averted  Prcemunire, 
raged  only  the  fiercer  as  the  dark  years  went  by.  If  the 
Statutes  of  Labourers  were  powerless  for  their  immediate 
ends,  either  in  reducing  the  actual  rate  of  wages  or  in 
restricting  the  mass  of  floating  labour  to  definite  areas 
of  employment,  they  proved  effective  in  sowing  hatred 
between  employer  and  employed,  between  rich  and  poor. 
But  this  social  rift  was  not  the  only  rift  which  was 
opening  amidst  the  distress  and  misery  of  the  time.  The 
close  of  William  Longland's  poem  is  the  prophecy  of  a 
religious  revolution  ;  and  the  way  for  such  a  revolution 
was  being  paved  by  the  growing  bitterness  of  strife 
between  England  and  the  Papacy.  In  spite  of  the  sharp 
protests  from  king  and  parliament  the  need  for  money  at 
Avignon  was  too  great  to  allow  any  relaxation  in  the 
Papal  claims.  Almost  on  the  eve  of  Crec.y  Edward  took 
the  decisive  step  of  forbidding  the  entry  into  England  of 
any  Papal  bulls  or  documents  interfering  with  the  rights 
of  presentation  belonging  to  private  patrons.  But  the 
tenacity  of  Rome  was  far  from  loosening  its  grasp  on  this 
source  of  revenue  for  all  Edward's  protests.  Crecjr  how- 
ever gave  a  new  boldness  to  the  action  of  the  state,  and  a 
Statute  of  Provisors  was  passed  by  the  Parliament  in  1351 
which  again  asserted  the  rights  of  the  English  Church  and 
enacted  that  all  who  infringed  them  by  the  introduction 


444  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  of  Papal  "  provisors "  should  suffer  imprisonment.  But 
^  resistance  to  provisors  only  brought  fresh  vexations.  The 
^tevoi?*  P^rons  who  withstood  a  Papal  nominee  in  the  name  of 
1347-  the  law  were  summoned  to  defend  themselves  in  the 
issi.  Papal  Court.  From  that  moment  the  supremacy  of  the 
Papal  law  over  the  law  of  the  land  became  a  great  question 
in  which  the  lesser  question  of  provisors  merged.  The 
pretension  of  the  Court  of  Avignon  was  met  in  1353  by 
a  statute  which  forbade  any  questioning  of  judgements 
rendered  in  the  king's  courts  or  any  prosecution  of  a  suit 
in  foreign  courts  under  pain  of  outlawry,  'perpetual  im- 
prisonment, or  banishment  from  the  land.  It  was  this  act 
of  Prsemunire — as  it  came  in  after  renewals  to  be  called — 
which  furnished  so  terrible  a  weapon  to  the  Tudors  in 
their  later  strife  with  Eome.  But  the  papacy  paid  little 
heed  to  these  warnings,  and  its  obstinacy  in  still  receiving 
suits  and  appeals  in  defiance  of  this  statute  roused  the 
pride  of  a  conquering  people.  England  was  still  fresh 
from  her  glory  at  Bretigny  when  Edward  appealed  to  the 
Parliament  of  1365.  Complaints,  he  said,  were  constantly 
being  made  by  his  subjects  to  the  Pope  as  to  matters 
which  were  cognizable  in  the  King's  courts.  The  practice 
of  provisors  was  thus  maintained  in  the  teeth  of  the  laws, 
and  "the  laws,  usages,  ancient  customs,  and  franchises 
of  his  kingdom  were  thereby  much  hindered,  the  King's 
crown  degraded,  and  his  person  defamed."  The  King's 
appeal  was  hotly  met.  "Biting  words,"  which  it  was 
thought  wise  to  suppress,  were  used  in  the  debate  which 
followed,  and  the  statutes  against  provisors  and  appeals 
were  solemnly  confirmed. 

Wyclif.  What  gave  point  to  this  challenge  was  the  assent  of  the 
prelates  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Parliament;  and  the 
pride  of  Urban  V.  at  once  met  it  by  a  counter-defiance. 
He  demanded  with  threats  the  payment  of  the  annual  sum 
of  a  thousand  marks  promised  by  King  John  in  acknow- 
ledgement of  the  suzerainty  of  the  See  of  Piome.  The 
insult  roused  the  temper  of  the  realm.  The  King  laid  the 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  445 

demand  before  Parliament,  and  both  houses  replied  that  CHAP.  III. 
"  neither  King  John  nor  any  king  could  put  himself,  his  J^ 
kingdom,  nor  his  people  under  subjection  save  with  their  Revolt1 
accord  or  assent."  John's  submission  had  been  made  13^. 
"  without  their  assent  and  against  his  coronation  oath "  1381- 
and  they  pledged  themselves,  should  the  Pope  attempt  to 
enforce  his  claim,  to  resist  him  with  all  their  power. 
Even  Urban  shrank  from  imperilling  the  Papacy  by  any 
further  demands,  and  the  claim  to  a  Papal  lordship  over 
England  was  never  again  heard  of.  But  the  struggle 
had  brought  to  the  front  a  man  who  was  destined  to 
give  a  far  wider  scope  and  significance  to  this  resistance 
to  Rome  than  any  as  yet  dreamed  of.  Nothing  is  more 
remarkable  than  the  contrast  between  the  obscurity  of 
John  Wyclif's  earlier  life  and  the  fulness  and  vividness 
of  our  knowledge  of  him  during  the  twenty  years  which 
preceded  its  close.  Born  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  he  had  already  passed  middle  age  when 
ho  was  appointed  to  the  mastership  of  Balliol  College  in 
the  University  of  Oxford  and  recognized  as  first  among  the 
schoolmen  of  his  day.  Of  all  the  scholastic  doctors  those 
of  England  had  been  throughout  the  keenest  and  most 
daring  in  philosophical  speculation.  A  reckless  audacity  and 
love  of  novelty  was  the  common  note  of  Bacon,  Duns  Scotus, 
and  Ockham,  as  against  the  sober  and  more  disciplined 
learning  of  the  Parisian  schoolmen,  Albert  and  Thomas 
Aquinas.  The  decay  of  the  University  of  Paris  during 
the  English  wars  was  transferring  her  intellectual  supre- 
macy to  Oxford,  and  in  Oxford  Wyclif  stood  without  a 
rival.  From  his  predecessor,  Bradwardine,  whose  work  as 
a  scholastic  teacher  he  carried  on  in  the  speculative 
treatises  he  published  during  this  period,  he  inherited  the 
tendency  to  a  predestinarian  Augustinianism  which  formed 
the  groundwork  of  his  later  theological  revolt.  His  debt  to 
Ockham  revealed  itself  in  his  earliest  efforts  at  Church 
reform.  Undismayed  by  the  thunder  and  excommunica- 
tions of  the  Church,  Ockham  had  supported  the  Emperor 


446 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1347- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  Lewis  of  Bavaria  in  his  recent  struggle,  and  he  had 
^~e  hot  shrunk  in  his  enthusiasm  for  the  Empire  from 
ifevo"^  attacking  the  foundations  of  the  Papal  supremacy  or 
from  asserting  the  rights  of  the  civil  power.  The  spare, 
emaciated  frame  of  Wyclif,  weakened  by  study  and  asceti- 
cism, hardly  promised  a  reformer  who  would  carry  on  the 
stormy  work  of  Ockham ;  but  within  this  frail  form  lay  a 
temper  quick  and  restless,  an  immense  energy,  an  immov- 
able conviction,  an  unconquerable  pride.  The  personal 
charm  which  ever  accompanies  real  greatness  only  deepened 
the  influence  he  derived  from  the  spotless  purity  of  his 
life.  As  yet  indeed  even  Wyclif  himself  can  hardly  have 
suspected  the  immense  range  of  his  intellectual  power. 
It  was  only  the  struggle  that  lay  before  him  which  revealed 
in  the  dry  and  subtle  schoolman  the  founder  of  our  later 
English  prose,  a  master  of  popular  invective,  of  irony,  of 
persuasion,  a  dexterous  politician,  an  audacious  partizan,  the 
organizer  of  a  religious  order,  the  unsparing  assailant  of 
abuses,  the  boldest  and  most  indefatigable  of  controver- 
sialists, the  first  Reformer  who  dared,  when  deserted  and 
alone,  to  question  and  deny  the  creed  of  the  Christendom 
around  him,  to  break  through  the  tradition  of  the  past,  and 
with  his  last  breath  to  assert  the  freedom  of  religious 
thought  against  the  dogmas  of  the  Papacy. 

At  the  moment  of  the  quarrel  with  Pope  Urban  however 
Wyclif  was  far  from  having  advanced  to  such  a  position  as 
this.  As  the  most  prominent  of  English  scholars  it  was 
natural  that  he  should  come  forward  in  defence  of  the 
independence  and  freedom  of  the  English  Church  ;  and 
he  published  a  formal  refutation  of  the  claims  advanced 
by  the  Papacy  to  deal  at  its  will  with  church  property  in 
the  form  of  a  report  of  the  Parliamentary  debates  which 
we  have  described.  As  yet  his  quarrel  was  not  with  the 
doctrines  of  Eome  but  with  its  practices ;  and  it  was  on 
the  principles  of  Ockham  that  he  defended  the  Parlia- 
ment's refusal  of  the  "  tribute "  which  was  claimed  by 
Urban.  But  his  treatise  on  "  The  Kingdom  of  God,"  "  De 


"De 

Dominio 
Divino." 


iv.l  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  447 

Dominio  Divino,"  which  can  hardly  have  been  written  CHAP.  Ill 
later  than  1368,  shows  the  breadth  of  the  ground  he  was  ^e 
even  now  prepared  to  take  up.  In  this,  the  most  famous  juvoit* 
of  his  works,  Wyclif  bases  his  argument  on  a  distinct  ideal  1347- 
of  society.  All  authority,  to  use  his  own  expression,  is  1?!L1' 
"  founded  in  grace."  Dominion  in  the  highest  sense  is  in 
God  alone  ;  it  is  God  who  as  the  suzerain  of  the  universe 
deals  out  His  rule  in  fief  to  rulers  in  their  various  stations 
on  tenure  of  their  obedience  to  himself.  It  was  easy  to 
object  that  in  such  a  case  "  dominion  "  could  never  exist, 
since  mortal  sin  is  a  breach  of  such  a  tenure  and  all  men  sin. 
But,  as  Wyclif  urged  it,  the  theory  is  a  purely  ideal  one. 
In  actual  practice  he  distinguishes  between  dominion  and 
power,  power  which  the  wicked  may  have  by  God's  per- 
mission, and  to  which  the  Christian  must  submit  from 
motives  of  obedience  to  God.  In  his  own  scholastic  phrase, 
so  strangely  perverted  afterwards,  here  on  earth  "God 
must  obey  the  devil."  But  whether  in  the  ideal  or  prac- 
tical view  of  the  matter  all  power  and  dominion  was  of 
God.  It  was  granted  by  Him  not  to  one  person,  His  Vicar 
on  earth,  as  the  Papacy  alleged,  but  to  all.  The  King  was 
as  truly  God's  Vicar  as  the  Pope.  The  royal  power  was 
as  sacred  as  the  ecclesiastical,  and  as  complete  over  tem- 
poral things,  even  over  the  temporalities  of  the  Church,  as 
that  of  the  Church  over  spiritual  things.  So  far  as  the 
question  of  Church  and  State  therefore  was  concerned  the 
distinction  between  the  ideal  and  practical  view  of  "  do- 
minion" was  of  little  account.  "Wyclif 's  application  of 
the  theory  to  the  individual  conscience  was  of  far  higher 
and  wider  importance.  Obedient  as  each  Christian  might 
be  to  king  or  priest,  he  himself  as  a  possessor  of  "  do- 
minion "  held  immediately  of  God.  The  throne  of  God 
Himself  was  the  tribunal  of  personal  appeal.  What  the 
Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century  attempted  to  do  by 
their  theory  of  Justification  by  Faith  Wyclif  attempted  to 
do  by  his  theory  of  Dominion,  a  theory  which  in  establish- 
ing a  direct  relation  between  man  and  God  swept  away  the 


448 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1347- 
1381. 

England 

and 
Aqui- 
taine. 


CHAP.  III.   whole  basis  of  a  mediating  priesthood,  the  very  foundation 
^       on  which  the  mediaeval  church  was  built. 

As  vet  *he  full  bearing  of  these  doctrines  was  little 
seen.  But  the  social  and  religious  excitement  which  we 
have  described  was  quickened  by  the  renewal  of  the  war, 
and  the  general  suffering  and  discontent  gathered  bitter- 
ness when  the  success  which  had  flushed  England  with  a 
new  and  warlike  pride  passed  into  a  long  series  of  disasters 
in  which  men  forgot  the  glories  of  Creyj-  and  Poitiers. 
Triumph  as  it  seemed,  the  treaty  of  Bretigny  was  really 
fatal  to  Edward's  cause  in  the  south  of  France.  By  the 
cession  of  Aquitaine  to  him  in  full  sovereignty  the  tradi- 
tional claim  on  which  his  strength  rested  lost  its  force. 
The  people  of  the  south  had  clung  to  their  Duke,  even 
though  their  Duke  was  a  foreign  ruler.  They  had  stub- 
bornly resisted  incorporation  with  Northern  France.  While 
preserving  however  their  traditional  fealty  to  the  descend- 
ants of  Eleanor  they  still  clung  to  the  equally  traditional 
suzerainty  of  the  Kings  of  France.  But  the  treaty  of 
Bretigny  not  only  severed  them  from  the  realm  of  France, 
it  subjected  them  to  the  realm  of  England.  Edward 
ceased  to  be  their  hereditary  Duke,  he  became  simply  an 
English  king  ruling  Aquitaine  as  an  English  dominion.  If 
the  Southerners  loved  the  North-French  little,  they  loved  the 
English  less,  and  the  treaty  which  thus  changed  their  whole 
position  was  followed  by  a  quick  revulsion  of  feeling  from 
the  Garonne  to  the  Pyrenees.  The  Gascon  nobles  declared 
that  John  had  no  right  to  transfer  their  fealty  to  another 
and  to  sever  them  from  the  realm  of  France.  The  city  of 
Eochelle  prayed  the  French  King  not  to  release  it  from  its 
fealty  to  him.  "  We  will  obey  the  English  with  our  lips  " 
said  its  citizens,  "but  our  hearts  shall  never  be  moved 
towards  them."  Edward  strove  to  meet  this  passion  for 
local  independence,  this  hatred  of  being  ruled  from  London, 
by  sending  the  Black  Prince  to  Bordeaux  and  investing 
him  in  1362  with  the  Duchy  of  Aquitaine.  But  the  new 
Duke  held  his  Duchy  as  a  fief  from  the  English  King,  and 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  449 

the  grievance  of  the  Southerners  was  left  untouched.  CHAP,  lit 
Charles  V.  who  succeeded  his  father  John  in  1364  silently 
prepared  to  reap  this  harvest  of  discontent.  Patient, 
wary,  unscrupulous,  he  was  hardly  crowned  before  he  put 
an  end  to  the  war  which  had  gone  on  without  a  pause  in 
Britanny  by  accepting  homage  from  the  claimant  whom 
France  had  hitherto  opposed.  Through  Bertrand  du 
Guesclin,  a  fine  soldier  whom  his  sagacity  had  discovered, 
he  forced  the  King  of  Navarre  to  a  peace  which  closed  the 
fighting  in  Normandy.  A  more  formidable  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  pacification  and  order  lay  in  the  Free  Companies, 
a  union  of  marauders  whom  the  disbanding  of  both  armies 
after  the  peace  had  set  free  to  harry  the  wasted  land 
and  whom  the  King's  military  resources  were  insufficient 
to  cope  with.  It  was  the  stroke  by  which  Charles  cleared 
his  realm  of  these  scourges  which  forced  on  a  new  struggle 
with  the  English  in  the  south. 

In  the  judgement  of  the  English  court  the  friendship  of  Pedro  the 
Castille  was  of  the  first  importance  for  the  security  of  Cruel. 
Aquitaine.  Spain  was  the  strongest  naval  power  of  the 
western  world,  and  not  only  would  the  ports  of  Guienne 
be  closed  but  its  communication  with  England  would  be 
at  once  cut  off  by  the  appearance  of  a  joint  French  and 
Spanish  fleet  in  the  Channel.  It  was  with  satisfaction 
therefore  that  Edward  saw  the  growth  of  a  bitter  hostility 
between  Charles  and  the  Castilian  King,  Pedro  the  Cruel, 
through  the  murder  of  his  wife,  Blanche  of  Bourbon,  the 
French  King's  sister-in-law.  Henry  of  Trastamara,  a 
bastard  son  of  Pedro's  father  Alfonso  the  Eleventh,  had 
long  been  a  refugee  at  the  French  court,  and  soon  after 
the  treaty  of  Bretigny  Charles  in  his  desire  to  revenge  this 
murder  on  Pedro  gave  Henry  aid  in  an  attempt  on  the 
Castilian  throne.  It  was  impossible  for  England  to  look  on 
with  indifference  while  a  dependant  of  the  French  King 
became  master  of  Castille  ;  and  in  1362  a  treaty  offensive 
and  defensive  was  concluded  between  Pedro  and  Edward 
the  Third.  The  time  was  not  ceme  for  open  war ;  but  the 


450 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


Charles 

the 
Fifth. 


CHAP.  III.  subtle  policy  of  Charles  saw  in  this  strife  across  the 
Pyrenees  an  opportunity  both  of  detaching  Castille  from 
the  English  cause  and  of  ridding  himself  of  the  Free  Com- 
panies. With  characteristic  caution  he  dexterously  held 
himself  in  the  background  while  he  made  use  of  the  Pope, 
who  had  been  threatened  by  the  Free  Companies  in  his 
palace  at  Avignon  and  was  as  anxious  to  get  rid  of  them 
as  himself.  Pedro's  cruelty,  misgovernment,  and  alliance 
with  the  Moslem  of  Cordova  served  as  grounds  for  a 
crusade  which  was  proclaimed  by  Pope  Urban;  and  Du 
Guesclin,  who  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  expedition, 
found  in  the  Papal  treasury  and  in  the  hope  of  booty  from 
an  unravaged  land  means  of  gathering  the  marauders 
round  his  standard.  As  soon  as  these  Crusaders  crossed 
the  Ebro  Pedro  was  deserted  by  his  subjects,  and  in  1366 
Henry  of  Trastamara  saw  himself  crowned  without  a 
struggle  at  Burgos  as  King  of  Castille.  Pedro  with  his 
two  daughters  fled  for  shelter  to  Bordeaux  and  claimed 
the  aid  promised  in  the  treaty.  The  lords  of  Aquitaine 
shrank  from  fighting  for  sucli  a  cause,  but  in  spite  of  their 
protests  and  the  reluctance  of  the  English  council  to 
embark  in  so  distant  a  struggle  Edward  held  that  he  had 
no  choice  save  to  replace  his  ally,  for  to  leave  Henry 
seated  on  the  throne  was  to  leave  Aquitaine  to  be  crushed 
between  France  and  Castille. 

The  after  course  of  the  war  proved  that  in  his  anticipa- 
tions of  the  fatal  result  of  a  combination  of  the  two  powers 
Edward  was  right,  but  his  policy  jarred  not  only  against 
the  universal  craving  for  rest,  but  against  the  moral  sense 
of  the  world.  The  Black  Prince  however  proceeded  to 
carry  out  his  father's  design  in  the  teeth  of  the  general 
opposition.  His  call  to  arms  robbed  Henry  of  the  aid  of 
those  English  Companies  who  had  marched  till  now  with 
the  rest  of  the  crusaders,  but  who  returned  at  once  to  the 
standard  of  the  Prince ;  the  passes  of  Navarre  were  opened 
with  gold,  and  in  the  beginning  of  1367  the  English  army 
crossed  the  Pyrenees.  Advancing  to  the  Ebro  the  Prince 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  451 

offered  battle  at  Navarete  with  an  army  already  reduced  CHAP.  III. 
by  famine  and  disease  in  its  terrible  winter  march,  and  ^ 
Henry  with  double  his  numbers  at  once  attacked  him. 
But  in  spite  of  the  obstinate  courage  of  the  Castilian 
troops  the  discipline  and  skill  of  the  English  soldiers  once 
more  turned  the  wavering  day  into  a  victory.  Du  Guesclin 
was  taken,  Henry  lied  across  the  Pyrenees,  and  Pedro  was 
again  seated  on  his  throne.  The  pay  however  which  he 
had  promised  was  delayed ;  and  the  Prince,  whose  army 
had  been  thinned  by  disease  to  a  fifth  of  its  numbers  and 
whose  strength  never  recovered  from  the  hardships  of  this 
campaign,  fell  back  sick  and  beggared  to  Aquitaine.  He 
had  hardly  returned  when  his  work  was  undone.  In  1368 
Henry  re-entered  Castille ;  its  towns  threw  open  their 
gates  ;  a  general  rising  chased  Pedro  from  the  throne,  and 
a  final  battle  in  the  spring  of  1369  saw  his  utter  overthrow. 
His  murder  by  Henry's  hand  left  the  bastard  undisputed 
master  of  Castille.  Meanwhile  the  Black  Prince,  sick  and 
disheartened,  was  hampered  at  Bordeaux  by  the  expenses 
of  the  campaign  which  Pedro  had  left  unpaid.  To  defray 
his  debt  he  was  driven  in  1368  to  lay  a  hearth-tax  on 
Aquitaine,  and  the  tax  served  as  a  pretext  for  an  outbreak 
of  the  long-hoarded  discontent.  Charles  was  now  ready  for 
open  action.  He  had  won  over  the  most  powerful  among 
the  Gascon  nobles,  and  their  influence  secured  the  rejection 
of  the  tax  in  a  Parliament  of  the  province  which  met 
at  Bordeaux.  The  Prince,  pressed  by  debt,  persisted 
against  the  counsel  of  his  wisest  advisers  in  exacting  it ; 
and  the  lords  of  Aquitaine  at  once  appealed  to  the  King 
of  France.  Such  an  appeal  was  a  breach  of  the  treaty  of 
Bretigny  in  which  the  French  King  had  renounced  his 
sovereignty  over  the  south ;  but  Charles  had  craftily 
delayed  year  after  year  the  formal  execution  of  the  renun- 
ciations stipulated  in  the  treaty,  and  he  was  still  able  to 
treat  it  as  not  binding  on  him.  The  success  of  Henry 
of  Trastamara  decided  him  to  take  immediate  action,  and 
in  1369  he  summoned  the  Black  Prince  as  Duke  of 


452 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1347- 
1381. 

Renewal 
of  the 
War. 


CHAP.  III.   Aquitaine  to  meet  the  appeal  of  the  Gascon  lords  in  his 

^       court. 

Kevoit*  The  Prince  was  maddened  by  the  summons.  "I 
will  come"  he  replied,  "but  with  helmet  on  head,  and 
with  sixty  thousand  men  at  my  back."  War  however 
had  hardly  been  declared  when  the  ability  with  which 
Charles  had  laid  his  plans  was  seen  in  his  seizure  of 
Ponthieu  and  in  a  rising  of  the  whole  country  south  of 
the  Garonne.  Du  Guesclin  returned  in  1370  from  Spain 
to  throw  life  into  the  French  attack.  Two  armies  entered 
Guienne  from  the  east ;  and  a  hundred  castles  with  La 
Reole  and  Limoges  threw  open  their  gates  to  Du  Guesclin. 
But  the  march  of  an  English  army  from  Calais  upon 
Paris  recalled  him  from  the  south  to  guard  the  capital  at 
a  moment  when  the  English  leader  advanced  to  recover 
Limoges,  and  the  Black  Prince  borne  in  a  litter  to  its  walls 
stormed  the  town  and  sullied  by  a  merciless  massacre  of 
its  inhabitants  the  fame  of  his  earlier  exploits.  Sickness 
however  recalled  him  home  in  the  spring  of  1371 ;  and 
the  war,  protracted  by  the  caution  of  Charles  who  forbad 
his  armies  to  engage,  did  little  but  exhaust  the  energy 
and  treasure  of  England.  As  yet  indeed  the  French 
attack  had  made  small  impression  on  the  south,  where  the 
English  troops  stoutly  held  their  ground  against  Du 
Guesclin's  inroads.  But  the  protracted  war  drained 
Edward's  resources,  while  the  diplomacy  of  Charles  was 
busy  in  rousing  fresh  dangers  from  Scotland  and  Castille. 
It  was  in  vain  that  Edward  looked  for  allies  to  the 
Flemish  towns.  The  male  line  of  the  Counts  of  Flanders 
ended  in  Count  Louis  le  Male ;  and  the  marriage  of  his 
daughter  Margaret  with  Philip,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  a 
younger  brother  of  the  French  King,  secured  Charles 
from  attack  along  his  northern  border.  In  Scotland  the 
death  of  David  Bruce  put  an  end  to  Edward's  schemes 
for  a  reunion  of  the  two  kingdoms ;  and  his  successor, 
Robert  the  Steward,  renewed  in  1371  the  alliance  with 
France. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  453 

Castille  was  a  yet  more  serious  danger  ;  and  an  effort  CHAP.  III. 
which  Edward  made  to  neutralize  its  attack  only  forced  ^ 
Henry  of  Trastamara  to  fling  his  whole  weight  into  the  aevoit1 
struggle.  The  two  daughters  of  Pedro  had  remained  since  1374.- 
their  father's  flight  at  Bordeaux.  The  elder  of  these  was  1381~ 
now  wedded  to  John  of  Gaunt,  Edward's  fourth  son,  whom  Loss  of 
he  had  created  Duke  of  Lancaster  on  his  previous  marriage  ?MJ 
with  Blanche,  a  daughter  of  Henry  of  Lancaster  and  the 
heiress  of  that  house,  while  the  younger  was  wedded  to 
Edward's  fifth  son,  the  Earl  of  Cambridge.  Edward's  aim 
was  that  of  raising  again  the  party  of  King  Pedro  and 
giving  Henry  of  Trastamara  work  to  do  at  home  which 
would  hinder  his  interposition  in  the  war  of  Guienne. 
It  was  with  this  view  that  John  of  Gaunt  on  his  marriage 
took  the  title  of  King  of  Castille.  But  no  adherent  of 
Pedro's  cause  stirred  in  Spain,  and  Henry  replied  to  the 
challenge  by  sending  a  Spanish  fleet  to  the  Channel.  A 
decisive  victory  which  this  fleet  won  over  an  English 
convoy  off  Rochelle  proved  a  fatal  blow  to  the  English 
cause.  It  wrested  from  Edward  the  mastery  of  the  seas, 
and  cut  off  all  communication  between  England  and 
Guienne.  Charles  was  at  once  roused  to  new  exertions. 
Poitou,  Saintonge,  and  the  Angoumois  yielded  to  his 
general  Du  Guesclin;  and  Rochelle  was  surrendered  by  its 
citizens  in  1372.  The  next  year  saw  a  desperate  attempt  to 
restore  the  fortune  of  the  English  arms.  A  great  army 
under  John  of  Gaunt  penetrated  into  the  heart  of  France. 
But  it  found  no  foe  to  engage,  Charles  had  forbidden  any 
fighting.  "  If  a  storm  rages  over  the  land,"  said  the  King 
coolly,  "it  disperses  of  itself;  and  so  will  it  be  with  the 
English."  Winter  in  fact  overtook  the  Duke  of  Lancaster 
in  the  mountains  of  Auvergne,  and  a  mere  fragment  of  his 
host  reached  Bordeaux.  The  failure  of  this  attack  was  the 
signal  for  a  general  defection,  and  ere  the  summer  of  1374 
had  closed  the  two  towns  of  Bordeaux  and  Bayonne  were 
all  that  remained  of  the  English  possessions  in  Southern 
France.  Even  these  were  only  saved  by  the  exhaustion 

VOL.  I.— 30 


454  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

JHAP.  III.  of  the  conquerors.  The  treasury  of  Charles  was  as  utterly 
^  drained  as  the  treasury  of  Edward;  and  the  Kings  were 

BeVoU*     forced  to  a  truce. 

1347-          Only  fourteen  years  had  gone  by  since  the   Treaty  of 

1381.  Bretigny  raised  England  to  a  height  of  glory  such  as  it 
The  had  never  known  before.  But  the  years  had  been  years  of 

Strife.  a  shame  and  suffering  which  stung  the  people  to  madness. 
Never  had  England  fallen  so  low.  Her  conquests  were 
lost,  her  shores  insulted,  her  commerce  swept  from  the 
seas.  Within  she  was  drained  by  the  taxation  and  blood- 
.  shed  of  the  war.  Its  popularity  had  wholly  died  away. 
When  the  Commons  were  asked  in  1354  whether  they 
would  assent  to  a  treaty  of  perpetual  peace  if  they  might 
have  it,  "  the  said  Commons  responded  all,  and  all 
together,  '  Yes,  yes  ! ' '  The  population  was  thinned  by 
the  ravages  of  pestilence,  for  till  1369,  which  saw  its 
last  visitation,  the  Black  Death  returned  again  and 
again.  The  social  strife  too  gathered  bitterness  with 
every  effort  at  repression.  It  was  in  vain  that  Parliament 
after  Parliament  increased  the  severity  of  its  laws.  The 
demands  of  the  Parliament  of  1376  show  how  inoperative 
the  previous  Statutes  of  Labourers  had  proved.  They  prayed 
that  constables  be  directed  to  arrest  all  who  infringed  the 
Statute,  that  no  labourer  should  be  allowed  to  take  refuge 
in  a  town  and  become  an  artizan  if  there  were  need  of 
his  service  in  the  county  from  which  he  came,  and  that 
the  King  would  protect  lords  and  employers  against  the 
threats  of  death  uttered  by  serfs  who  refused  to  serve. 
The  reply  of  the  Eoyal  Council  shows  that  statesmen  at 
any  rate  were  beginning  to  feel  that  repression  might  be 
pushed  too  far.  The  King  refused  to  interfere  by  any 
further  and  harsher  provisions  between  employers  and 
employed,  and  left  cases  of  breach  of  law  to  be  dealt  with 
in  his  ordinary  courts  of  justice.  On  the  one  side  he 
forbade  the  threatening  gatherings  which  were  already 
common  in  the  country,  but  on  the  other  he  forbade  the 
illegal  exactions  of  the  employers.  With  such  a  reply 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  455 

however  the  proprietary  class  were  hardly  likely  to   be  CHAP.  111. 
conu-ut.     Two  years   later  the  Parliament  of  Gloucester       ^ 
called  for  a  Fugitive-slave  Law,  which  would  have  enabled     a^it1 
lords  to  seize  their  serfs  in  whatever  county  or  town  they     1347. 
found  retuge,  and  in  1379  they  prayed  that  judges  might      1381- 
be  sent  live  times  a  year  into  every  shire  to  enforce  the 
Statute  of  Labourers. 

But  the  strife  between  employers  and  employed  was  Edward 
not  the  only  rift  winch  was  opening  in  the  social  and  &* 
structure,  buffering  and  defeat  had  stripped  off  the  men?' 
veil  which  hid  from  the  nation  the  shallow  and  selfish 
temper  of  Edward  the  Third.  His  profligacy  was 
now  bringing  him  to  a  premature  old  age.  He  was 
sinking  into  the  tool  of  his  ministers  and  his  mis- 
tresses. The  glitter  and  profusion  of  his  court,  his 
splendid  tournaments,  his  feasts,  his  Table  Round,  his 
new  order  of  chivalry,  the  exquisite  chapel  of  St. 
Stephen  whose  frescoed  walls  were  the  glory  of  his 
palace  at  Westminster,  the  vast  keep  w7hich  crowned 
the  hill  of  Windsor,  had  ceased  to  throw  their  glamour 
round  a  King  who  tricked  his  Parliament  and  swindled 
his  creditors.  Edward  paid  no  debts.  He  had  ruined 
the  wealthiest  bankers  of  Florence  by  a  cool  act  of 
bankruptcy.  The  sturdier  Flemish  burghers  only  wrested 
payment  from  him  by  holding  his  royal  person  as  their 
security.  His  own  subjects  fared  no  better  than 
foreigners.  The  prerogative  of  "  purveyance  "  by  which 
the  King  in  his  progresses  through  the  country  had  the 
right  of  first  purchase  of  all  that  he  needed  at  fair 
market  price  became  a  galling  oppression  in  the  hands 
of  a  bankrupt  King  who  was  always  moving  from  place 
to  place.  "  When  men  hear  of  your  coming,"  Arch- 
bishop Islip  wrote  to  Edward,  "  everybody  at  once  for 
sheer  fear  sets  about  hiding  or  eating  or  getting  rid  of 
their  geese  and  chickens  or  other  possessions  that  they 
may  not  utterly  lose  them  through  your  arrival.  The 
purveyors  and  servants  of  your  court  seize  on  men  and 


456 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

The 

Peasant 
Bevolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


horses  in  the  midst  of  their  field  work.  They  seize  on 
the  very  bullocks  that  are  at  plough  or  at  sowing,  and 
force  them  to  work  for  two  or  three  days  at  a  time 
without  a  penny  of  payment.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
men  make  dole  and  murmur  at  your  approach,  for,  as 
the  truth  is  in  God,  I  myself,  whenever  I  hear  a 
rumour  of  it,  be  I  at  home  or  in  chapter  or  in  church 
or  at  study,  nay  if  I  am  saying  mass,  even  I  in  my 
own  person  tremble  in  every  limb."  But  these  irregular 
exactions  were  little  beside  the  steady  pressure  of 
taxation.  Even  in  the  years  of  peace  fifteenths  and 
tenths,  subsidies  on  wool  and  subsidies  on  leather,  were 
demanded  and  obtained  from  Parliament ;  and  with  the 
outbreak  of  war  the  royal  demands  became  heavier  and 
more  frequent.  As  failure  followed  failure  the  expenses 
of  each  campaign  increased :  an  ineffectual  attempt  to 
relieve  Eochelle  cost  nearly  a  million  ;  the  march  of  John 
of  Gaunt  through  France  utterly  drained  the  royal  treasury. 
Nor  were  these  legal  supplies  all  that  the  King  drew  from 
the  nation.  He  had  repudiated  his  pledge  to  abstain 
from  arbitrary  taxation  of  imports  and  exports.  He  sold 
monopolies  to  the  merchants  in  exchange  for  increased 
customs.  He  wrested  supplies  from  the  clergy  by  arrange- 
ments with  the  bishops  or  the  Pope.  There  were  signs 
that  Edward  was  longing  to  rid  himself  of  the  control 
of  Parliament  altogether.  The  power  of  the  Houses 
seemed  indeed  as  high  as  ever ;  great  statutes  were  passed. 
Those  of  Provisors  and  Prsemunire  settled  the  relations  of 
England  to  the  Roman  Court.  That  of  Treason  in  1352 
defined  that  crime  and  its  penalties.  That  of  the  Staples 
in  1353  regulated  the  conditions  of  foreign  trade  and 
the  privileges  of  the  merchant  gilds  which  conducted 
it.  But  side  by  side  with  these  exertions  of  influence 
we  note  a  series  of  steady  encroachments  by  the  Crown  on 
the  power  of  the  Houses.  If  their  petitions  were  granted, 
they  were  often  altered  in  the  royal  ordinance  which 
professed  to  embody  them.  A  plan  of  demanding  supplies 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  457 

for  three  years  at  once  rendered  the  annual  assembly  of  CHAP.  III. 

Parliament    less    necessary.       Its    very    existence     was  ^ 

threatened  by  the    convocation    in    1352   and    1353    of  5^°* 

occasional  councils  with  but  a  single  knight  from  every  1347. 

shire  and  a  single  burgess  from  a  small  number  of  the  1??1- 
greater  towns,  which  acted  as   Parliament   and   granted 
subsidies. 

What  aided  Edward  above  all  in.  eluding  or   defying  The 

Tt 

the   constitutional    restrictions    on   arbitrary  taxation,  as      ^dl"^' 

well  as  in  these  more  insidious  attempts  to  displace  the     Church. 

Parliament,  was    the  lessening  of  the   check   which  the 

Baronage  and  the  Church  had  till  now  supplied.   The  same 

causes  which  had  long  been  reducing  the  number  of  the 

greater  lords  who  formed  the  upper  house  went  steadily 

on.     Under  Edward  the  Second  little  more  than  seventy 

were  commonly  summoned  to  Parliament ;  little  more  than 

forty  were  summoned  under  Edward  the  Third,  and  of 

these  the  bulk  were  now  bound  to  the  Crown,  partly  by 

their  employment  on  its  service,  partly  by  their  interest 

in  the  continuance  of  the  war.     The  heads  of  the  Baronage 

too  were  members  of  the  royal  family.  Edward  had  carried 

out  on  a  far  wider  scale  than  before  the  policy  which  had 

been  more  or  less  adhered  to  from  the  days  of  Henry  the 

Third,  that  of  gathering  up  in  the  hands  of  the  royal  house 

all  the  greater  heritages  of  the  land.     The  Black  Prince 

was   married  to  Joan  of  Kent,   the  heiress   of   Edward 

the    First's  younger    son,   Earl  Edmund  of    Woodstock. 

His   marriage   with  the   heiress  of  the  Earl  of    Ulster 

brought  to  the  King's  second  son,  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence, 

a  great  part  of  the  possessions  of  the  de  Burghs.    Later  on 

the  possessions  of  the  house  of  Bohun   passed  by  like 

matches  to   his  youngest  son,  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  and 

to  his  grandson  Henry  of  Lancaster.     Bat  the   greatest 

English  heritage  fell  to  Edward's  third  living  son,  John  of 

Gaunt  as  he  was  called  from  his  birth  at  Ghent  during 

his  father's  Flemish  campaign.      Originally  created  Earl 

of  Pdchmond,  the  death  of  his  father-in-law,  Henry  of 


458 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  Ill, 

The 

Peasant 
Kevolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


Weakness 
of  the 
Church. 


Lancaster,  and  of  Henry's  eldest  daughter,  raised  John 
in  his  wife's  right  to  the  Dukedom  of  Lancaster  and  the 
Earldoms  of  Derby,  Leicester,  and  Lincoln.  But  while  the 
baronage  were  thus  bound  to  the  Crown,  they  drifted  more 
and  more  into  an  hostility  with  the  Church  which  in 
time  disabled  the  clergy  from  acting  as  a  check  on  it. 
What  rent  the  ruling  classes  in  twain  was  the  {"rowin^ 

*-*  o  o 

pressure  of  the  war.  The  nobles  and  knighthood  of  the 
country,  already  half  ruined  by  the  rise  in  the  labour  mar- 
ket and  the  attitude  of  the  peasantry,  were  pressed  harder 
than  ever  by  the  repeated  subsidies  which  were  called  for 
by  the  continuance  of  the  struggle.  In  the  hour  of  their 
distress  they  cast  their  eyes  greedily — as  in  the  Norman 
and  Angevin  days — on  the  riches  of  the  Church.  Never 
had  her  wealth  been  greater.  Out  of  a  population  of  some 
three  millions  the  ecclesiastics  numbered  between  twenty 
and  thirty  thousand.  Wild  tales  of  their  riches  floated 
about  the  country.  They  were  said  to  own  in  landed 
property  alone  more  than  a  third  of  the  soil,  while  their 
"  spiritualities  "  in  dues  and  offerings  amounted  to  twice 
the  King's  revenue.  Exaggerated  as  such  statements  were, 
the  wealth  of  the  Church  was  really  great ;  but  even 
more  galling  to  the  nobles  was  its  influence  in  the  royal 
councils.  The  feudal  baronage,  flushed  with  a  new  pride 
by  its  victories  at  Crecj-  and  Poitiers,  looked  with  envy 
and  wrath  at  the  throng  of  bishops  around  the  council- 
board,  and  attributed  to  their  love  of  peace  the  errors 
and  sluggishness  which  had  caused,  as  they  held,  the 
disasters  of  the  war.  To  rob  the  Church  of  wealth  and 
of  power  became  the  aim  of  a  great  baronial  party. 

The  efforts  of  the  baronage  indeed  would  have  been 
fruitless  had  the  spiritual  power  of  the  Church  remained  as 
of  old.  But  the  clergy  were  rent  by  their  own  dissensions. 
The  higher  prelates  were  busy  \vith  the  cares  of  political 
office,  and  severed  from  the  lower  priesthood  by  the  scan- 
dalous inequality  between  the  revenues  of  the  wealthier 
ecclesiastics  and  the  "  poor  parson  "  of  the  country.  A  bitter 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  459 

hatred  divided  the  secular  clergy  from  the  regular;  and  this   CHAI>  j,. 
strife  went  fiercely  on  in  the  Universities.    fitz-Balf,  the 

Thi* 

Chancellor  of  Oxford,  attributed  to  the  friars  the  decline  Peasant 
which  was  already  being  felt  in  the  number  of  academical 
students,  and  the  University  checked  by  statute  their  lasi." 
practice  of  admitting  mere  children  into  their  order.  The 
clergy  too  at  large  shared  in  the  discredit  and  unpopu- 
larity of  the  Papacy.  Though  they  suffered  more  than 
any  other  class  from  tbe  exactions  of  Avignon,  they  were 
bound  more  and  more  to  the  Papal  cause.  The  very 
statutes  which  would  have  protected  them  were  practically 
set  aside  by  the  treacherous  diplomacy  of  the  Crown. 
At  home  and  abroad  the  Bornan  see  was  too  useful  for  the 
King  to  come  to  any  actual  breach  with  it.  However  much 
Edward  might  echo  the  bold  words  of  his  Parliament,  he 
shrank  from  an  open  contest  which  would  have  added  the 
Papacy  to  his  many  foes,  and  which  would  at  the  same 
time  have  robbed  him  of  his  most  effective  means  of 
wresting  aids  from  the  English  clergy  by  private  arrange- 
ment with  the  Boman  court.  Borne  indeed  was  brought 
to  waive  its  alleged  right  of  appointing  foreigners  to 
English  livings.  But  a  compromise  was  arranged  be- 
tween the  Pope  and  the  Crown  in  which  both  united 
in  the  spoliation  and  enslavement  of  the  Church.  The 
voice  of  chapters,  of  monks,  of  ecclesiastical  patrons, 
went  henceforth  for  nothing  in  the  election  of  bishops 
or  abbots  or  the  nomination  to  livings  in  the  gift 
of  churchmen.  The  Crown  recommended  those  whom  it 
chose  to  the  Pope,  and  the  Pope  nominated  them  to  see 
or  cure  of  souls.  The  treasuries  of  both  King  and  Pope 
profited  by  the  arrangement ;  but  we  can  hardly  wonder 
that  after  a  betrayal  such  as  this  the  clergy  placed  little 
trust  in  statutes  or  royal  protection,  and  bowed  humbly 
before  the  claims  of  Borne. 

But  what  weakened  the  clergy  most  was  their  severance  ztsWorld- 
from  the  general  sympathies  of  the  nation,  their  selfishness,      liness. 
and  the  worldliness  of  their  temper.     Immense  as  their 


460 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1347- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  wealth  was,  they  bore  as  little  as  they  could  of  the  common 
xi^  burthens  of  the  realm.  They  were  still  resolute  to  assert 
Revolt*  ^eir  exemption  from  the  common  justice  of  the  land, 
though  the  mild  punishments  of  the  bishops'  courts  carried 
as  little  dismay  as  ever  into  the  mass  of  disorderly  clerks. 
But  privileged  as  they  thus  held  themselves  against  all  inter- 
ference from  the  lay  world  without  them,  they  carried  on 
a  ceaseless  interference  with  the  affairs  of  this  lay  world 
through  their  control  over  wills,  contracts  and  divorces. 
No  figure  was  better  known  or  more  hated  than  the  sum- 
moner  who  enforced  the  jurisdiction  and  levied  the  dues 
of  their  courts.  By  their  directly  religious  offices  they 
penetrated  into  the  very  heart  of  the  social  life  about 
them.  But  powerful  as  they  were,  their  moral  authority 
was  fast  passing  away.  The  wealthier  churchmen  with 
their  curled  hair  and  hanging  sleeves  aped  the  costume 
of  the  knightly  society  from  which  they  were  drawn  and 
to  which  they  still  really  belonged.  We  see  the  general 
impression  of  their  worldliness  in  Chaucer's  pictures  of 
the  hunting  monk  and  the  courtly  prioress  with  her  love- 
motto  on  her  brooch.  The  older  religious  orders  in  fact 
had  sunk  into  mere  landowners,  while  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  friars  had  in  great  part  died  away  and  left  a  crowd  of 
impudent  mendicants  behind  it.  Wyclif  could  soon  with 
general  applause  denounce  them  as  sturdy  beggars,  and 
declare  that  "the  man  who  gives  alms  to  a  begging  friar 
is  ipso  facto  excommunicate." 

Advance  It  wras  this  weakness  of  the  Baronage  and  the  Church, 
Commons  anc^  tne  conse(luent;  withdrawal  of  both  as  represented  in 
the  temporal  and  spiritual  Estates  of  the  Upper  House 
from  the  active  part  which  they  had  taken  till  now  in 
checking  the  Crown,  that  brought  the  Lower  House  to 
the  front.  The  Knight  of  the  Shire  was  now  finally 
joined  with  the  Burgess  of  the  Town  to  form  the  Third 
Estate  of  the  realm:  and  this  union  of  the  trader  and 
the  country  gentleman  gave  a  vigour  and  weight  to  the 
action  of  the  Commons  which  their  House  could  never 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  461 

have  acquired  had  it  remained  as  elsewhere  a  mere  CHAP.  III. 
gathering  of  burgesses.  But  it  was  only  slowly  and  T^ 
under  the  pressure  of  one  necessity  after  another  that  j&v'oi?1 
the  Commons  took  a  growing  part  in  public  affairs.  Their  1347. 
primary  business  was  with  taxation,  and  here  they  stood  1381' 
firm  against  the  evasions  by  which  the  King  still  managed 
to  battle  their  exclusive  right  of  granting  supplies  by 
voluntary  agreements  with  the  merchants  of  the  Staple. 
Their  steady  pressure  at  last  obtained  in  1362  an  enact- 
ment that  no  subsidy  should  henceforth  be  set  upon  wool 
without  assent  of  Parliament,  while  Purveyance  was  re- 
stricted by  a  provision  that  payments  should  be  made  for 
all  things  taken  for  the  King's  use  in  ready  money.  A 
hardly  less  important  advance  was  made  by  the  change  of 
Ordinances  into  Statutes.  Till  this  time,  even  when  a 
petition  of  the  Houses  was  granted,  the  royal  Council 
had  reserved  to  itself  the  right  of  modifying  its  form  in 
the  Ordinance  which  professed  to  embody  it.  It  was 
under  colour  of  this  right  that  so  many  of  the  provisions 
made  in  Parliament  had  hitherto  been  evaded  or  set  aside. 
But  the  Commons  now  met  this  abuse  by  a  demand  that 
on  the  royal  assent  being  given  their  petitions  should  be 
turned  without  change  into  Statutes  of  the  Realm  and 
derive  force  of  law  from  their  entry  on  the  Rolls  of 
Parliament.  The  same  practical  sense  was  seen  in  their 
dealings  with  Edward's  attempt  to  introduce  occasional 
smaller  councils  with  parliamentary  powers.  Such  an 
assembly  in  1353  granted  a  subsidy  on  wool.  The  Parlia- 
ment which  met  in  the  following  year  might  have  challenged 
its  proceedings  as  null  and  void,  but  the  Commons  more 
wisely  contented  themselves  with  a  demand  that  the 
ordinances  passed  in  the  preceding  assembly  should  receive 
the  sanction  of  the  Three  Estates.  A  precedent  for  evil 
was  thus  turned  into  a  precedent  for  good,  and  though 
irregular  gatherings  of  a  like  sort  were  for  a  while 
occasionally  held  they  were  soon  seen  to  be  fruitless  and 
discontinued.  But  the  Commons  long  shrank  from 


462 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


Baronage 
attacks 

the 
Church. 


meddling  with  purely  administrative  matters.  When 
Edward  in  his  anxiety  to  shift  from  himself  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  war  referred  to  them  in  1354  for  advice  on 
one  of  the  numerous  propositions  of  peace,  they  referred 
him  to  the  lords  of  his  Council.  "Most  dreaded  lord," 
they  replied,  "  as  to  this  war  and  the  equipment  needful 
for  it  we  are  so  ignorant  and  simple  that  we  know  not 
how  nor  have  the  power  to  devise.  Wherefore  we  pray 
your  Grace  to  excuse  us  in  this  matter,  and  that  it  please 
you  with  the  advice  of  the  great  and  wise  persons  of  your 
Council  to  ordain  what  seems  best  for  you  for  the  honour 
and  profit  of  yourself  and  of  your  kingdom.  And  what- 
soever shall  be  thus  ordained  by  assent  and  agreement  on 
the  part  of  you  and  your  Lords  we  readily  assent  to  and 
will  hold  it  firmly  established." 

But  humble  as  was  their  tone  the  growing  power  of  the 
Commons  showed  itself  in  significant  changes.  In  1363 
the  Chancellor  opened  Parliament  with  a  speech  in  English, 
no  doubt  as  a  tongue  intelligible  to  the  members  of  the 
Lower  House.  From  a  petition  in  1376  that  knights  of 
the  shire  may  be  chosen  by  common  election  of  the  better 
folk  of  the  shire  and  not  merely  nominated  by  the  sheriff 
without  due  election,  as  well  as  from  an  earlier  demand 
that  the  sheriffs  themselves  should  be  disqualified  from 
serving  in  Parliament  during  their  term  of  office,  we  see 
that  the  Crown  had  already  begun  not  only  to  feel  the 
pressure  of  the  Commons  but  to  meet  it  by  foisting  royal 
nominees  on  the  constituencies.  Such  an  attempt  at 
packing  the  House  would  hardly  have  been  resorted  to 
had  it  not  already  proved  too  strong  for  direct  control.  A 
further  proof  of  its  influence  was  seen  in  a  prayer  of  the 
Parliament  that  lawyers  practising  in  the  King's  courts 
might  no  longer  be  eligible  as  knights  of  the  shire.  The 
petition  marks  the  rise  of  a  consciousness  that  the  House 
was  now  no  mere  gathering  of  local  representatives  but  a 
national  assembly,  and  that  a  seat  in  it  could  no  longer 
be  confined  to  dwellers  within  the  bounds  of  this  county 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


463 


The 

Peasant 
Eevolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


or  that.  Bu-t  it  showed  also  a  pressure  for  seats,  a  CHAP.  III. 
passing  away  of  the  old  dread  of  being  returned  as  a 
representative  and  a  new  ambition  to  gain  a  place  among 
the  members  of  the  Commons.  Whether  they  would  or 
no  indeed  the  Commons  were  driven  forward  to  a  more 
direct  interference  with  public  affairs.  From  the  memor- 
able statute  of  1322  their  right  to  take  equal  part  in  all 
matters  brought  before  Parliament  had  been  incontestable, 
and  their  waiver  of  much  of  this  right  faded  away  before 
the  stress  of  time.  Their  assent  was  needed  to  the  great 
ecclesiastical  statutes  which  regulated  the  relation  of  the 
see  of  Eome  to  the  realm.  They  naturally  took  a  chief 
part  in  the  enactment  and  re-enactment  of  the  Statute  of 
Labourers.  The  Statute  of  the  Staple,  with  a  host  of 
smaller  commercial  and  economical  measures,  were  of 
their  origination.  But  it  was  not  till  an  open  breach 
took  place  between  the  baronage  and  the  prelates  that 
their  full  weight  was  felt.  In  the  Parliament  of  1371, 
on  the  resumption  of  the  war,  a  noble  taunted  the 
Church  as  an  owl  protected  by  the  feathers  which  other 
birds  had  contributed,  and  which  they  had  a  right  to 
resume  when  a  hawk's  approach  threatened  them.  The 
worldly  goods  of  the  Church,  the  metaphor  hinted,  had  been 
bestowed  on  it  for  the  common  weal,  and  could  be  taken 
from  it  on  the  coming  of  a  common  danger.  The  threat 
was  followed  by  a  prayer  that  the  chief  offices  of  state, 
which  had '  till  now  been  held  by  the  leading  bishops, 
might  be  placed  in  lay  hands.  The  prayer  was  at  once 
granted:  William  of  Wykeham,  Bishop  of  Winchester 
resigned  the  Chancellorship,  another  prelate  the  Treasury 
to  lay  dependents  of  the  great  nobles ;  and  the  panic  of 
the  clergy  was  seen  in  large  grants  which  were  voted  by 
both  Convocations. 

At  the  moment  of  their  triumph  the  assailants  of  the 
Church  found  a  leader  in  John  of  Gaunt.  The  Duke  of 
Lancaster  now  wielded  the  actual  power  of  the  Crown. 
Edward  himself  was  sinking  into  dotage.  Of  his  sons  the 


John  of 
Gaunt. 


464  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III.  Black  Prince,  who  had  never  rallied  from  the  hardships 
^  of  his  Spanish  campaign,  was  fast  drawing  to  the  grave ; 
Revo*?4  ^e  nad  l°st  a  second  son  by  death  in  childhood ;  the 
1347.  third,  Lionel  of  Clarence,  had  died  in  1368.  It  was 
issi.  j^g  fourth  son  therefore,  John  of  Gaunt,  to  whom  the 
royal  power  mainly  fell.  By  his  marriage  with  the  heiress 
of  the  house  of  Lancaster  the  Duke  had  acquired  lands 
and  wealth,  but  he  had  no  taste  for  the  policy  of  the 
Lancastrian  house  or  for  acting  as  leader  of  the  barons 
in  any  constitutional  resistance  to  the  Crown.  His  pride, 
already  quickened  by  the  second  match  with  Constance  to 
which  he  owed  his  shadowy  kingship  of  Castille,  drew  him 
to  the  throne;  and  the  fortune  which  placed  the  royal 
power  practically  in  his  hands  bound  him  only  the  more 
firmly  to  its  cause.  Men  held  that  his  ambition  looked  to 
the  Crown  itself,  for  the  approaching  death  of  Edward  and 
the  Prince  of  Wales  left  but  a  boy,  Richard,  the  son  of  the 
Black  Prince,  a  child  of  but  a  few  years  old,  and  a  girl, 
the  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  between  John  and 
the  throne.  But  the  Duke's  success  fell  short  of  his  pride. 
In  the  campaign  of  1373  he  traversed  France  without 
finding  a  foe  and  brought  back  nothing  save  a  ruined 
army  to  English  shores.  The  peremptory  tone  in  which 
money  was  demanded  for  the  cost  of  this  fruitless  march 
while  the  petitions  of  the  Parliament  were  set  aside  till  it 
was  granted  roused  the  temper  of  the  Commons.  They 
requested — it  is  the  first  instance  of  such  a  practice — a 
conference  with  the  lords,  and  while  granting  fresh 
subsidies  prayed  that  the  grant  should  be  spent  only  on 
the  war.  The  resentment  of  the  government  at  this 
advance  towards  a  control  over  the  actual  management 
of  public  affairs  was  seen  in  the  calling  of  no  Parliament 
through  the  next  two  years.  But  the  years  were  dis- 
astrous both  at  home  and  abroad.  The  war  went  steadily 
against  the  English  arms.  The  long  negotiations  with  the 
Pope  which  went  on  at  Bruges  through  1375,  and  in  which 
Wyclif  took  part  as  one  of  the  royal  commissioners,  ended 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  465 

in  a  compromise  by  which  Home  yielded  nothing.     The  CHAP.  III. 
strife  over  the  Statute  of  Labourers  grew  fiercer  and  fiercer,        ^ 
and  a  return  of  the  plague  heightened  the  public  distress.      Rev"?1 
Edward  was  now  wholly  swayed  by  Alice  Ferrers,  and     1347- 
the  Duke  shared  his  power  with  the  royal  mistress.     But     1381' 
if  we  gather  its  tenor  from  the  complaints  of  the  succeeding 
Parliament  his   administration  was   as   weak   as   it   was 
corrupt.      The    new    lay    ministers   lent    themselves   to 
gigantic  frauds.     The  chamberlain,  Lord  Latimer,  bought 
up  the   royal  debts  and  embezzled  the   public  revenue. 
With   Richard   Lyons,   a    merchant   through    whom    the 
King  negotiated  with  the  gild  of  the  Staple,  he  reaped 
enormous  profits  by  raising   the   price   of    imports    and 
by  lending  to  the  Crown    at  usurious  rates  of  interest. 
"When  the  empty  treasury  forced  them  to  call  a  Parliament 
the  ministers   tampered  with   the  elections   through   the 
sheriffs. 

But  the  temper  of  the  Parliament  which  met  in  1376,  The  Good 
and  which  gained  from  after  times  the  name  of  the  Good  Parlia- 
Parliament,  shows  that  these  precautions  had  utterly  failed. 
Even  their  promise  to  pillage  the  Church  had  failed  to 
win  for  the  Duke  and  his  party  the  good  will  of  the  lesser 
gentry  or  the  wealthier  burgesses  who  together  formed 
the  Commons.  Projects  of  wide  constitutional  and  social 
change,  of  the  humiliation  and  impoverishment  of  an 
estate  of  the  realm,  were  profoundly  distasteful  to  men 
already  struggling  with  a  social  revolution  on  their  own 
estates  and  in  their  own  workshops.  But  it  was  not  merely 
its  opposition  to  the  projects  of  Lancaster  and  his  party 
among  the  baronage  which  won  for  this  assembly  the 
name  of  the  Good  Parliament.  Its  action  marked  a  new 
period  in  our  Parliamentary  history,  as  it  marked  a  new 
stage  in  the  character  of  the  national  opposition  to  the 
misrule  of  the  Crown.  Hitherto  the  task  of  resistance 
had  devolved  on  the  baronage,  and  had  been  carried  out 
through  risings  of  its  feudal  tenantry.  But  the  mis- 
government  was  now  that  of  the  baronage  or  of  a  main 


466 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  part  of  the  baronage  itself  in  actual  conjunction  with  the 
Crown.  Only  in  the  power  of  the  Commons  lay  any 
adequate  means  of  peaceful  redress.  The  old  reluctance 
of  the  Lower  House  to  meddle  with  matters  of  State  was 
roughly  swept  away  therefore  by  the  pressure  of  the  time. 
The  Black  Prince,  anxious  to  secure  his  child's  succession 
by  the  removal  of  John  of  Gaunt,  the  prelates  with 
William  of  Wykehain  at  their  head,  resolute  again  to 
take  their  place  in  the  royal  councils  and  to  check  the 
projects  of  ecclesiastical  spoliation  put  forward  by  their 
opponents,  alike  found  in  it  a  body  to  oppose  to  the 
Duke's  administration.  Backed  by  po\vers  such  as  these, 
the  action  of  the  Commons  showed  none  of  their 
old  timidity  or  self-distrust.  The  presentation  of  a 
hundred  and  sixty  petitions  of  grievances  preluded  a 
bold  attack  on  the  royal  Council.  "  Trusting  in  God, 
and  standing  with  his  followers  before  the  nobles,  whereof 
the  chief  was  John  Duke  of  Lancaster,  whose  doings 
were  ever  contrary,"  their  speaker,  Sir  Peter  de  la  Mare, 
denounced  the  mismanagement  of  the  war,  the  oppressive 
taxation,  and  demanded  an  account  of  the  expenditure- 
"  What  do  these  base  and  ignoble  knights  attempt  ? " 
cried  John  of  Gaunt.  "Do  they  think  they  be  kings 
or  princes  of  the  land?"  But  the  movement  was  too 
strong  to  be  stayed.  Even  the  Duke  was  silenced  by  the 
charges  brought  against  the  ministers.  After  a  strict 
enquiry  Latimer  and  Lyons  were  alike  thrown  into  prison, 
Alice  Perrers  was  banished,  and  several  of  the  royal 
servants  were  driven  from  the  Court.  At  this  moment 
the  death  of  the  Black  Prince  shook  the  power  of  the 
Parliament.  But  it  only  heightened  its  resolve  to  secure 
the  succession.  His  son,  Eichard  of  Bordeaux,  as  he  was 
called  from  the  place  of  his  birth,  was  now  a  child  of 
but  ten  years  old ;  and  it  was  known  that  doubts  were 
whispered  on  the  legitimacy  of  his  birth  and  claim.  Aa 
early  marriage  of  his  mother  Joan  of  Kent,  a  granddaughter 
of  Edward  the  First,  with  the  Earl  of  Salisbury  had 


iv.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  467 

been  annulled ;  but  the  Lancastrian  party  used  this  first  CHAI-.  III. 
match  to  throw  doubts  on  the  validity  of  her  subsequent 
union  with  the  Black  Prince  and  on  the  right  of  Pdchard 
to  the  throne.  The  dread  of  Lancaster's  ambition  is  the  1347- 
first  indication  of  the  approach  of  what  was  from  this  l3*^' 
time  to  grow  into  the  great  difficulty  of  the  realm,  the 
question  of  the  succession  to  the  Crown.  From  the  death 
of  Edward  the  Third  to  the  deatli  of  Charles  the  First  no 
English  sovereign  felt  himself  secure  from  rival  claimants 
of  his  throne.  As  yet  liowever  the  dread  was  a  baseless 
one  ;  the  people  were  heartily  with  the  Prince  and  his 
child.  The  Duke's  proposal  that  the  succession  should  be 
settled  in  case  of  Ptichard's  death  was  rejected ;  and  the 
boy  himself  was  brought  into  Parliament  and  acknow- 
ledged as  heir  of  the  Crown. 

To  secure  their  work  the  Commons  ended  by  obtaining  Wyclif 
the  addition  of  nine  lords  with  William  of  Wykeham  and.  and  John 
two  other  prelates  among  them  to  the  royal  Council.  But  °- 
the  Parliament  was  no  sooner  dismissed  than  the  Duke  at 
once  resumed  his  power.  His  anger  at  the  blow  which  had 
been  dealt  at  his  projects  was  no  doubt  quickened  by  resent- 
ment at  the  sudden  advance  of  the  Lower  House.  From  the 
Commons  who  shrank  even  from  giving  counsel  on  matters 
of  state  to  the  Commons  who  dealt  with  such  matters  as 
their  special  business,  who  investigated  royal  accounts,  who 
impeached  royal  ministers,  who  dictated  changes  in  the  royal 
advisers,  was  an  immense  step.  But  it  was  a  step  which 
the  Duke  believed  could  be  retraced.  His  haughty  will 
rlung  aside  all  restraints  of  law.  He  dismissed  the  new 
lords  and  prelates  from  the  Council.  He  called  back  Alice 
Perrers  and  the  disgraced  ministers.  He  declared  the 
Good  Parliament  no  parliament,  and  did  not  suffer  its 
petitions  to  be  enrolled  as  statutes.  He  imprisoned  Peter 
de  la  Mare,  and  confiscated  the  possessions  of  William 
of  Wykeham.  His  attack  on  this  prelate  was  an  attack 
on  the  clergy  at  large,  and  the  attack  became  significant 
when  the  Duke  gave  his  open  patronage  to  the  denuncia- 


468 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1347- 
1381 


CHAP.  III.  tions  of  Church  property  which  formed  the  favourite  theme 
The  °f  John  Wyclif.  To  Wyclif  such  a  prelate  as  Wykeham 
^eVoit*  symbolized  the  evil  which  held  down  the  Church.  His 
administrative  ability,  his  political  energy,  his  wealth  and 
the  colleges  at  Winchester  and  at  Oxford  which  it  enabled 
him  to  raise  before  his  death,  were  all  equally  hateful.  It 
was  this  wealth,  this  intermeddling  with  worldly  business, 
which  the  ascetic  reformer  looked  upon  as  the  curse 
that  robbed  prelates  and  churchmen  of  that  spiritual 
authority  which  could  alone  meet  the  vice  and  suffering  of 
the  time.  Whatever  baser  motives  might  spur  Lancaster 
and  his  party,  their  projects  of  spoliation  must  have 
seemed  to  Wyclif  projects  of  enfranchisement  for  the 
Church.  Poor  and  powerless  in  worldly  matters,  he  held 
that  she  would  have  the  wealth  and  might  of  heaven  at 
her  command.  Wyclif 's  theory  of  Church  and  State  had 
led  him  long  since  to  contend  that  the  property  of  the 
clergy  might  be  seized  and  employed  like  other  property 
for  national  purposes.  Such  a  theory  might  have  been 
left,  as  other  daring  theories  of  the  schoolmen  had  been 
left,  to  the  disputation  of  the  schools.  But  the  clergy 
were  bitterly  galled  when  the  first  among  English  teachers 
threw  himself  hotly  on  the  side  of  the  party  which 
threatened  them  with  spoliation,  and  argued  in  favour 
of  their  voluntary  abandonment  of  all  Church  property 
and  of  a  return  to  their  original  poverty.  They  were 
roused  to  action  when  Wyclif  came  forward  as  the 
theological  bulwark  of  the  Lancastrian  party  at  a 
moment  when  the  clergy  were  freshly  outraged  by  the 
overthrow  of  the  bishops  and  the  plunder  of  Wykeham. 
They  forced  the  King  to  cancel  the  sentence  of  banish- 
ment from  the  precincts  of  the  Court  which  had  been 
directed  against  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  by  refusing  any 
grant  of  supply  in  Convocation  till  William  of  Wykeham 
took  his  seat  in  it.  But  in  the  prosecution  of  Wyclif 
they  resolved  to  return  blow  for  blow.  In  February 
1377  he  was  summoned  before  Bishop  Courtenay  oi' 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307— H61. 


469 


The 

Peasant 
Kevolt. 

134-7- 
1381. 


London  to  answer  for  his  heretical  propositions  concerning  CHAP.  III. 
the  wealth  of  the  Church. 

The  Duke  of  Lancaster  accepted  the  challenge  as  really 
given  to  himself,  and  stood  by  Wyclif's  side  in  the  Con- 
sistory Court  at  St.  Paul's.  But  no  trial  took  place. 
Fierce  words  passed  between  the  nobles  and  the  prelate  : 
the  Duke  himself  was  said  to  have  threatened  to  drag 
Courteriay  out  of  the  church  by  the  hair  of  his  head ;  at 
last  the  London  populace,  to  whom  John  of  Gaunt  was 
hateful,  burst  in  to  their  Bishop's  rescue,  and  Wyclif's 
life  was  saved  with  difficulty  by  the  aid  of  the  soldiery. 
But  his  boldness  only  grew  with  the  danger.  A  Papal 
bull  which  was  procured  by  the  bishops,  directing  the 
University  to  condemn  and  arrest  him,  extorted  from  him 
a  bold  defiance.  In  a  detence  circulated  widely  through 
the  kingdom  and  laid  before  Parliament,  Wyclif  broadly 
asserted  that  no  man  could  be  excommunicated  by  the 
Pope  "unless  he  were  first  excommunicated  by  him- 
self." He  denied  the  right  of  the  Church  to  exact 
or  defend  temporal  privileges  by  spiritual  censures,  de- 
clared that  a  Church  might  justly  be  deprived  by  the 
King  or  lay  lords  of  its  property  for  defect  of  duty,  and 
defended  the  subjection  of  ecclesiastics  to  civil  tribunals. 
It  marks  the  temper  of  the  time  and  the  growing  severance 
between  the  Church  and  the  nation  that,  bold  as  the 
defiance  was,  it  won  the  support  of  the  people  as  of  the 
Crown.  When  Wyclif  appeared  at  the  close  of  the  year 
in  Lambeth  Chapel  to  answer  the  Archbishop's  summons 
a  message  from  the  Court  forbade  the  primate  to  proceed 
and  the  Londoners  broke  in  and  dissolved  the  session. 

Meanwhile  the  Duke's  unscrupulous  tampering  with 
elections  had  packed  the  Parliament  of  1377  with  his 
adherents.  The  work  of  the  Good  Parliament  was  undone, 
and  the  Commons  petitioned  for  the  restoration  of  all  who 
had  been  impeached  by  their  predecessors.  The  needs  of 
the  treasury  were  met  by  a  novel  form  of  taxation.  To  the 
earlier  land-tax,  to  the  tax  on  personalty  which  dated  from 

'          I.— 31 


Death  of 

Edward 

the  Third,. 


470  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  the  Saladin  Tithe,  to  the  customs  duties  which  had  grown 
^  into  importance  in  the  last  two  reigns,  was  now  added  a 
Rev8*!?.*  tax  which  reached  every  person  in  the  realm,  a  poll-tax  of 
1347-  a  groat  a  head.  In  this  tax  were  sown  the  seeds  of  future 
1381.  trouble,  but  when  the  Parliament  broke  up  in  March  the 
Duke's  power  seemed  completely  secured.  Hardly  three 
months  later  it  was  wholly  undone.  In  June  Edward  the 
Third  died  in  a  dishonoured  old  age,  robbed  on  his  death- 
bed even  of  his  rings  by  the  mistress  to  whom  he  clung,  and 
the  accession  of  his  grandson,  Richard  the  Second,  changed 
the  whole  face  of  affairs.  The  Duke  withdrew  from 
court,  and  sought  a  reconciliation  with  the  party  opposed 
to  him.  The  men  of  the  Good  Parliament  surrounded  the 
new  King,  and  a  Parliament  which  assembled  in  October 
took  vigorously  up  its  work.  Peter  de  la  Mare  was 
released  from  prison  and  replaced  in  the  chair  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  action  of  the  Lower  House 
indeed  was  as  trenchant  and  comprehensive  as  that  of 
the  Good  Parliament  itself.  In  petition  after  petition  the 
Commons  demanded  the  confirmation  of  older  rights  and 
the  removal  of  modern  abuses.  They  complained  of  ad- 
ministrative wrongs  such  as  the  practice  of  purveyance, 
of  abuses  of  justice,  of  the  oppressions  of  officers  of  the 
exchequer  and  of  the  forest,  of  the  ill  state  of  the  prisons, 
of  the  custom  of  "  maintenance  "  by  which  lords  extended 
their  livery  to  shoals  of  disorderly  persons  and  overawed 
the  courts  by  means  of  them.  Amid  ecclesiastical  abuses 
they  noted  the  state  of  the  Church  courts,  and  the  neglect 
of  the  laws  of  Provisors.  They  demanded  that  the 
annual  assembly  of  Parliament,  which  had  now  become 
customary,  should  be  defined  by  law,  and  that  bills  once 
sanctioned  by  the  Crown  should  be  forthwith  turned  into 
statutes  without  further  amendment  or  change  on  the  part 
of  the  royal  Council.  With  even  greater  boldness  they 
laid  hands  on  the  administration  itself.  They  not  only 
demanded  that  the  evil  counsellors  of  the  last  reign  should 
be  removed,  and  that  the  treasurer  of  the  subsidy  on  wool 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  471 

should  account  for  its  expenditure  to  the  lords,  but  that  CHAP.  III. 
the  royal  Council  should  be  named  in  Parliament,  and 
chosen  from  members  of  either  estate  of  the  realm, 
Though  a  similar  request  for  the  nomination  of  the  officers 
of  the  royal  household  was  refused,  their  main  demand  1381- 
was  granted.  It  was  agreed  that  the  great  officers  of 
state,  the  chancellor,  treasurer,  and  barons  of  exchequer 
should  be  named  by  the  lords  in  Parliament,  and  re- 
moved from  their  offices  during  the  king's  "  tender  years  " 
only  on  the  advice  of  the  lords.  The  pressure  of  the 
war,  which  rendered  the  existing  taxes  insufficient, 
gave  the  House  a  fresh  hold  on  the  Crown.  While 
granting  a  new  subsidy  in  the  form  of  a  land  and 
property  tax,  the  Commons  restricted  its  proceeds  to  the 
war,  and  assigned  two  of  their  members,  William  Wai  worth 
and  John  Philpot,  as  a  standing  committee  to  regulate  its 
expenditure.  The  successor  of  this  Parliament  in  the 
following  year  demanded  and  obtained  an  account  of  the 
way  in  which  the  subsidy  had  been  spent. 

The  minority  of  the  King,  who  was  but  eleven  years  Discontent 
old  at  his  accession,  the  weakness  of  the  royal  council  of  the 
amidst  the  strife  of  the  baronial  factions,  above  all 
the  disasters  of  the  war  without  and  the  growing  anarchy 
within  the  realm  itself,  alone  made  possible  this  start- 
ling assumption  of  the  executive  power  by  the  Houses. 
The  shame  of  defeat  abroad  was  being  added  to  the  misery 
and  discomfort  at  home.  The  French  war  ran  its  disastrous 
course.  One  English  fleet  was  beaten  by  the  Spaniards,  a 
second  sunk  by  a  storm ;  and  a  campaign  in  the  heart 
of  France  ended,  like  its  predecessors,  in  disappointment 
and  ruin.  Meanwhile  the  strife  between  employers  and 
employed  was  kindling  into  civil  war.  The  Parliament, 
drawn  as  it  was  wholly  from  the  proprietary  classes, 
struggled  as  fiercely  for  the  mastery  of  the  labourers  as 
it  struggled  for  the  mastery  of  the  Crown.  The  Good 
Parliament  had  been  as  strenuous  in  demanding  the 
enforcement  of  the  Statute  of  Labourers  as  any  of  its 


472 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


13A7- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  predecessors.  In  spite  of  statutes  however  the  market 
^  remained  in  the  labourers'  hands.  The  comfort  of  the 
BevoTt*  worker  rose  with  his  wages.  Men  who  had  "  no  land  to 
live  on  but  their  hands  disdained  to  live  on  penny  ale  or 
bacon,  and  called  for  fresh  flesh  or  fish,  fried  or  bake,  and 
that  hot  and  hotter  for  chilling  of  their  maw."  But  there 
were  dark  shades  in  this  general  prosperity  of  the  labour 
class.  There  were  seasons  of  the  year  during  which  em- 
ployment for  the  floating  mass  of  labour  was  hard  to  find. 
In  the  long  interval  between  harvest-tide  and  harvest-tide 
work  and  food  were  alike  scarce  in  every  homestead  of  the 
time.  Some  lines  of  William  Longland  give  us  the  picture 
of  a  farm  of  the  day.  "  I  have  no  penny  pullets  for  to  buy, 
nor  neither  geese  nor  pigs,  but  two  green  cheeses,  a  few  curds 
and  cream,  and  an  oaten  cake,  and  two  loaves  of  beans  and 
bran  baken  for  my  children.  I  have  no  salt  bacon  nor  no 
cooked  meat  collops  for  to  make,  but  I  have  parsley  and 
leeks  and  many  cabbage  plants,  and  eke  a  cow  and  a  calf, 
and  a  cart-mare  to  draw  a-field  my  dung  while  the  drought 
lasteth,  and  by  this  livelihood  we  must  all  live  till  Lammas- 
tide  [August],  and  by  that  I  hope  to  have  harvest  in  my  croft." 
But  it  was  not  till  Lammas-tide  that  high  wages  and  the 
new  corn  bade  "  Hunger  go  to  sleep,"  and  during  the  long 
spring  and  summer  the  free  labourer  and  the  "  waster  that 
will  not  work  but  wander  about,  that  will  eat  no  bread  but 
the  finest  wheat,  nor  drink  but  of  the  best  and  brownest 
ale,"  was  a  source  of  social  and  political  danger.  "  He 
grieveth  him  against  God  and  gradgeth  against  Eeason, 
and  then  curseth  he  the  King  and  all  his  council  after 
such  law  to  allow  labourers  to  grieve."  Such  a  smoulder- 
ing mass  of  discontent  as  this  needed  but  a  spark  to  burst 
into  flame ;  and  the  spark  was  found  in  the  imposition  of 
fresh  taxation. 

If  John  of  Gaunt  was  fallen  from  his  old  power  he  was 
still  the  leading  noble  in  the  realm,  and  it  is  possible  that 
dread  of  the  encroachments  of  the  last  Parliament  on  the 
executive  power  drew  after  a  time  even  the  new  advisers 


The 
Poll-tax. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  473 

of  the  Crown  closer  to  him.  Whatever  was  the  cause,  he  CHAP.  Ill 
again  came  to  the  front.  But  the  supplies  voted  in  the  ^^ 
past  year  were  wasted  in  his  hands.  A  fresh  expedition  ^fv^it* 
against  France  under  the  Duke  himself  ended  in  failure  1347- 
before  the  walls  of  St.  Malo,  while  at  home  his  brutal  *aj^- 
household  was  outraging  public  order  by  the  murder  of  a 
knight  who  had  incurred  John's  anger  in  the  precincts 
of  Westminster.  So  great  was  the  resentment  of  the 
Londoners  at  this  act  that  it  became  needful  to  summon 
Parliament  elsewhere  than  to  the  capital;  and  in  1378 
the  Houses  met  at  Gloucester.  The  Duke  succeeded  in 
bringing  the  lords  to  refuse  those  conferences  with  the 
Commons  which  had  given  unity  to  the  action  of  the 
late  Parliament,  but  he  was  foiled  in  an  attack  on  the 
clerical  privilege  of  sanctuary  and  in  the  threats  which 
his  party  still  directed  against  Church  property,  while 
the  Commons  forced  the  royal  Council  to  lay  before 
them  the  accounts  of  the  last  subsidy  and  to  appoint 
a  commission  to  examine  into  the  revenue  of  the 
Crown.  Unhappily  the  financial  policy  of  the  preceding 
year  was  persisted  in.  The  check  before  St.  Malo 
had  been  somewhat  redeemed  by  treaties  with  Charles 
of  Evreux  and  the  Duke  of  Britanuy  which  secured  to 
England  the  right  of  holding  Cherbourg  and  Brest ;  but 
the  cost  of  these  treaties  only  swelled  the  expenses  of 
the  war.  The  fresh  supplies  voted  at  Gloucester  proved 
insufficient  for  their  purpose,  and  a  Parliament  in  the 
spring  of  1379  renewed  the  Poll-tax  in  a  graduated  form. 
But  the  proceeds  of  the  tax  proved  miserably  inadequate, 
and  when  fresh  debts  beset  the  Crown  in  1380  a  return 
was  again  made  to  the  old  system  of  subsidies.  But  these 
failed  in  their  turn ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  year  the 
Parliament  again  fell  back  on  a  severer  Poll-tax.  One 
of  the  attractions  of  the  new  mode  of  taxation  seems  to 
have  been  that  the  clergy,  who  adopted  it  for  themselves, 
paid  in  this  way  a  larger  share  of  the  burthens  of  the 
state  ;  but  the  chief  ground  for  its  adoption  lay,  no  doubt, 


474 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Peasant 
Revolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  in  its  bringing  within  the  net  of  the  tax-gatherer  a  class 
which  had  hitherto  escaped  him,  men  such  as  the  free 
labourer,  the  village  smith,  the  village  tiler.  But  few  courses 
could  have  been  more  dangerous.  The  poll-tax  not  only 
brought  the  pressure  of  the  war  home  to  every  household  ; 
it  goaded  into  action  precisely  the  class  which  was  already 
seething  with  discontent.  The  strife  between  labour  and 
capital  was  going  on  as  fiercely  as  ever  in  country  and  in 
town.  The  landlords  were  claiming  new  services,  or  forcing 
men  who  looked  on  themselves  as  free  to  prove  they  were 
no  villeins  by  law.  .The  free  labourer  was  struggling 
against  the  attempt  to  exact  work  from  him  at  low  wages. 
The  wandering  workman  was  being  seized  and  branded 
as  a  vagrant.  The  abbey  towns  were  struggling  for  freedom 
against  the  abbeys.  The  craftsmen  within  boroughs  were 
carrying  on  the  same  strife  against  employer  and  craft- 
gild.  And  all  this  mass  of  discontent  was  being  height- 
ened and  organized  by  agencies  with  which  the  government 
could  not  cope.  The  poorer  villeins  and  the  free  labourers 
had  long  since  banded  together  in  secret  conspiracies  which 
the  wealthier  villeins  supported  with  money.  The  return 
of  soldiers  from  the  war  threw  over  the  land  a  host  of 
broken  men,  skilled  in  arms,  and  ready  to  take  part  in  any 
rising.  The  begging  friars,  wandering  and  gossiping  from 
village  to  village  and  street  to  street,  shared  the  passions 
of  the  class  from  which  they  sprang.  Priests  like  Ball 
openly  preached  the  doctrines  of  communism.  And  to 
these  had  been  recently  added  a  fresh  agency  which 
could  hardly  fail  to  stir  a  new  excitement.  "With  the 
practical  ability  which  marked  his  character  Wyclif  set  on 
foot  about  this  time  a  body  of  poor  preachers  to  supply, 
as  he  held,  the  place  of  those  wealthier  clergy  who  had 
lost  their  hold  on  the  land.  The  coarse  sermons,  bare  feet, 
and  russet  dress  of  these  "  Simple  Priests "  moved  the 
laughter  of  rector  and  canon,  but  they  proved  a  rapid  and 
effective  means  of  diffusing  Wyclif s  protests  against  the 
wealth  and  sluggishness  of  the  clergy,  and  we  can  hardly 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  475 

doubt  that  in  the  general  turmoil  their  denunciation  of  CHAP.  111. 
ecclesiastical  wealth  passed  often  into  more  general  denun-        ^^ 
ciations  of  the  proprietary  classes.  B^voit* 

As  the  spring  went  by  quaint  rimes  passed  through  1347- 
the  country,  and  served  as  a  summons  to  revolt.  "John  1381- 
Ball,"  ran  one,  "  greeteth  you  all,  and  doth  for  to  under-  ^ohn 
stand  he  hath  rung  your  bell.  Now  right  and  might, 
will  and  skill,  God  speed  every  dele."  "  Help  truth," 
ran  another,  "  and  truth  shall  help  you !  Now  reigneth 
pride  in  price,  and  covetise  is  counted  wise,  and  lechery 
wit-houten  shame,  and  gluttony  withouten  blame.  Envy 
reigneth  with  treason,  and  sloth  is  take  in  great  season. 
God  do  bote,  for  now  is  tyme ! "  We  recognize  Ball's 
hand  in  the  yet  more  stirring  missives  of  "Jack  the 
Miller "  and  "  Jack  the  Carter."  "  Jack  Miller  asketh 
help  to  turn  his  mill  aright.  He  hath  grounden  small, 
small :  the  King's  Son  of  Heaven  he  shall  pay  for  all. 
Look  thy  mill  go  aright  with  the  four  sailes,  and  the  post 
stand  with  steadfastness.  With  right  and  with  might, 
with  skill  and  with  will ;  let  might  help  right,  and  skill  go 
before  will,  and  right  before  might,  so  goeth  our  mill 
aright."  "  Jack  Carter,"  ran  the  companion  missive,  "  prays 
you  all  that  ye  make  a  good  end  of  that  ye  have  begun, 
and  do  well,  and  aye  better  and  better :  for  at  the  even 
men  heareth  the  day."  "  Falseness  and  guile,"  sang  Jack 
Trewman,  "  have  reigned  too  long,  and  truth  hath  been 
set  under  a  lock,  and  falseness  and  guile  reigneth  in  every 
stock.  No  man  may  come  truth  to,  but  if  he  sing 
'  si  dedero.'  True  love  is  away  that  was  so  good,  and  clerks 
for  wealth  work  them  woe.  God  do  bote,  for  now  is 
time."  In  the  rude  jingle  of  these  lines  began  for  England 
the  literature  of  political  controversy :  they  are  the  first 
predecessors  of  the  pamphlets  of  Milton  and  of  Burke. 
Rough  as  they  are,  they  express  clearly  enough  the 
mingled  passions  which  met  in  the  revolt  of  the  peasants  : 
their  longing  for  a  right  rule,  for  plain  and  simple  justice ; 
their  scorn  of  the  immorality  of  the  nobles  and  the  infamy 


476 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1347- 
1381. 

The 

Peasant 
Rising. 


CHAP.  HI.   of  the  court ;  their  resentment  at  the  perversion  of  the  law 

^        to  the  cause  of  oppression. 

Bevoit*  From  the  eastern  and  midland  counties  the  restlessness 
spread  to  all  England  south  of  the  Thames.  But  the 
grounds  of  discontent  varied  with  every  district.  The 
actual  outbreak  began  on  the  5th  of  June  at  Dartford, 
where  a  tiler  killed  one  of  the  collectors  of  the  poll-tax  in 
vengeance  for  a  brutal  outrage  on  his  daughter.  The 
county  at  once  rose  in  arms.  Canterbury,  where  "  the 
whole  town  was  of  their  mind,"  threw  open  its  gates  to 
the  insurgents  who  plundered  the  Archbishop's  palace  and 
dragged  John  Ball  from  his  prison.  A  hundred  thousand 
Kentishmen  gathered  round  Walter  Tyler  of  Essex  and 
John  Hales  of  Mailing  to  march  upon  London.  Their 
grievance  was  mainly  a  political  one.  Villeinage  was 
unknown  in  Kent.  As  the  peasants  poured  towards  Black- 
heath  indeed  every  lawyer  who  fell  into  their  hands  was 
put  to  death ;  "  not  till  all  these  were  killed  would  the 
land  enjoy  its  old  freedom  again,"  the  Kentishmen  shouted 
as  they  fired  the  houses  of  the  stewards  and  flung  the 
rolls  of  the  manor-courts  into  the  flames.  But  this  action 
can  hardly  have  been  due  to  anything  more  than  sympathy 
with  the  rest  of  the  realm,  the  sympathy  which  induced  the 
same  men  when  pilgrims  from  the  north  brought  news 
that  John  of  Gaunt  was  setting  free  his  bondmen  to  send 
to  the  Duke  an  offer  to  make  him  Lord  and  King  of 
England.  Nor  was  their  grievance  a  religious  one. 
Lollardry  can  have  made  little  way  among  men  whose 
grudge  against  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  sprang  from 
his  discouragement  of  pilgrimages.  Their  discontent  was 
simply  political;  they  demanded  the  suppression  of  the 
poll-tax  and  better  government ;  their  aim  was  to  slay  the 
nobles  and  wealthier  clergy,  to  take  the  King  into  their 
own  hands,  and  pass  laws  which  should  seem  good  to  the 
Commons  of  the  realm.  The  whole  population  joined 
the  Kentishmen  as  they  marched  along,  while  the  nobles 
were  paralyzed  with  fear.  The  young  King — he  was  but 


rv.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  477 

a  boy  of  sixteen—  addressed  them  from  a  boat  on  the  CHAP.  III. 
river ;  but  the  refusal  of  his  Council  under  the  guidance  of  ^ 
Archbishop  Sudbury  to  allow  him  to  laud  kindled  the  ^evoU.1 
peasants  to  fury,  and  with  cries  of  "Treason"  the  great  1347. 
mass  rushed  on  London.  On  the  13th  of  June  its  gates  l^^' 
were  flung  open  by  the  poorer  artizans  within  the  city, 
and  the  stately  palace  of  John  of  Gaunt  at  the  Savoy, 
the  new  inn  of  the  lawyers  at  the  Temple,  the  houses  of 
the  foreign  merchants,  were  soon  in  a  blaze.  But  the  insur- 
gents, as  they  proudly  boasted,  were  "  seekers  of  truth  and 
justice,  not  thieves  or  robbers,"  and  a  plunderer  found 
carrying  off  a  silver  vessel  from  the  sack  of  the  Savoy  was 
flung  with  his  spoil  into  the  flames.  Another  body  of 
insurgents  encamped  at  the  same  time  to  the  east  of  the 
city.  In  Essex  and  the  eastern  counties  the  popular 
discontent  was  more  social  than  political.  The  demands 
of  the  peasants  were  that  bondage  should  be  abolished, 
that  tolls  and  imposts  on  trade  should  be  done  away  with, 
that  "  no  acre  of  land  which  is  held  in  bondage  or  villeinage 
be  held  at  higher  rate  than  fourpence  a  year,"  in  other 
words  for  a  money  commutation  of  all  villein  services. 
Their  rising  had  been  even  earlier  than  that  of  the 
Kentishmen.  Before  Whitsuntide  an  attempt  to  levy  the 
poll-tax  gathered  crowds  of  peasants  together,  armed  with 
clubs,  rusty  swords,  and  bows.  The  royal  commissioners 
who  were  sent  to  repress  the  tumult  were  driven  from  the 
field,  'and  the  Essex  men  marched  upon  London  on  one 
side  of  the  river  as  the  Kentishmen  marched  on  the  other. 
The  evening  of  the  thirteenth,  the  day  on  which  Tyler 
entered  the  city,  saw  them  encamped  without  its  walls  at 
Mile-end.  At  the  same  moment  Highbury  and  the 
northern  heights  were  occupied  by  the  men  of  Hertford- 
shire and  the  villeins  of  St.  Alban's,  where  a  strife  between 
abbot  and  town  had  been  going  on  since  the  days  of 
Edward  the  Second.  „.  , 

The   royal   Council  with   the  young  King  had  taken        //„, 
refuge  in  the  Tower,  and  their  aim  seems  to  have  been  to     &c<»nl. 


478 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III.  divide  the  forces  of  the  insurgents.  On  the  morning  of 
Xh^  the  fourteenth  therefore  Eichard  rode  from  the  Tower 
Bevott*  to  Mile-end  to  meet  the  Essex  men.  "  I  am  your  King 
1347-  and  Lord,  good  people,"  the  boy  began  with  a  fearless- 
1381  •  ness  which  marked  his  bearing  throughout  the  crisis, 
"  what  will  you  ? "  "  We  will  that  you  free  us  for  ever," 
shouted  the  peasants,  "  us  and  our  lands ;  and  that  we 
be  never  named  nor  held  for  serfs  ! "  "I  grant  it,"  replied 
Eichard  ;  and  he  bade  them  go  home,  pledging  himself  at 
once  to  issue  charters  of  freedom  and  amnesty.  A  shout  of 
joy  welcomed  the  promise.  Throughout  the  day  more 
than  thirty  clerks  were  "busied  writing  letters  of  pardon 
and  emancipation,  and  with  these  the  mass  of  the  Essex 
men  and  the  men  of  Hertfordshire  withdrew  quietly  to 
their  homes.  But  while  the  King  was  successful  at  Mile- 
end  a  terrible  doom  had  fallen  on  the  councillors  he  left 
behind  him.  Eichard  had  hardly  quitted  the  Tower  when 
the  Kentishmen  who  had  spent  the  night  within  the  city 
appeared  at  its  gates.  The  general  terror  was  shown 
ludicrously  enough  when  they  burst  in  and  taking  the 
panic-stricken  knights  of  the  royal  household  in  rough 
horse-play  by  the  beard  promised  to  be  their  equals  and 
good  comrades  in  the  days  to  come.  But  the  horse-play 
changed  into  dreadful  earnest  when  they  found  that 
Eichard  had  escaped  their  grasp,  and  the  discovery  of 
Archbishop  Sudbury  and  other  ministers  in  the  chapel 
changed  their  fury  into  a  cry  for  blood.  The  Primate 
was  dragged  from  his  sanctuary  and  beheaded.  The 
same  vengeance  was  wreaked  on  the  Treasurer  and  the 
Chief  Commissioner  for  the  levy  of  the  hated  poll-tax,  the 
merchant  Eichard  Lyons  who  had  been  impeached  by 
the  Good  Parliament.  Eichard  meanwhile  had  ridden 
round  the  northern  wall  of  the  city  to  the  Wardrobe  near 
Blackfriars,  and  from  this  new  refuge  he  opened  his 
negotiations  with  the  Kentish  insurgents.  Many  of  these 
dispersed  at  the  news  of  the  King's  pledge  to  the  men 
of  Essex,  but  a  body  of  thirty  thousand  still  surrounded 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307-1461. 


4711 


The 

Peasant 
Bevolt. 

1347- 

1381. 


Wat  Tyler  when  Richard  on  the  morning  of  the  fifteenth   CHAP.  III. 

encountered  that  leader  by  a  mere  chance  at  Smithfield. 

Hot   words   passed   between   his   train   and   the  peasant 

chieftain  who  advanced   to   confer   with   the   King,  and 

a  threat  from  Tyler  brought  on  a  brief  struggle  in  which 

the  Mayor  of  London,  William  Walworth,  struck  him  with 

his   dagger   to   the   ground.     "  Kill !  kill ! "   shouted  the 

crowd,   "  they   have   slain   our    captain ! "     But   Richard 

faced  the  Kentishmen  with  the  same  cool  courage  with 

which  he  faced  the  men  of  Essex.     "  What  need  ye,  my 

masters  !  "  cried  the  boy-king  as  he  rode  boldly  up  to  the 

front   of    the  bowmen.     "I  am  your  Captain  and  your 

King;     Follow  me  !"     The  hopes  of  the  peasants  centred 

in  the  young  sovereign  ;  one  aim  of  their  rising  had  been 

to  free  him  from  the  evil  counsellors  who,  as  they  believed, 

abused   his  youth ;    and  at  his  word  they  followed  him 

with   a   touching   loyalty   and  trust   till  he  entered  the 

Tower.     His  mother  welcomed  him  within  its  walls  with 

tears  of  joy.   "  Rejoice  and  praise  God,"  Richard  answered, 

"  for  I  have  recovered  to-day  my  heritage  which  was  lost 

and  the  realm  of  England  ! "     But  he  was  compelled  to 

give  the  same  pledge  of  freedom  to  the  Kentishmen  as  at 

Mile-end,  and  it  was  only  after  receiving  his  letters   of 

pardon  and  emancipation  that  the  yeomen  dispersed  to 

their  homes. 

The  revolt  indeed  was  far  from  being  at  an  end.  As 
the  news  of  the  rising  ran  through  the  country  the 
discontent  almost  everywhere  broke  into  flame.  There 
were  outbreaks  in  every  shire  south  of  the  Thames  as  far 
westward  as  Devonshire.  In  the  north  tumults  broke  out 
at  Beverley  and  Scarborough,  and  Yorkshire  and  Lanca- 
shire made  ready  to  rise.  The  eastern  counties  were  in 
one  wild  turmoil  of  revolt.  At  Cambridge  the  townsmen 
burned  the  charters  of  the  University  and  attacked  the 
colleges.  A  body  of  peasants  occupied  St.  Alban's.  In 
Norfolk  a  Norwich  artizan,  called  John  the  Litster  or  Dyer, 
took  the  title  of  King  of  the  Commons,  and  marching 


The 
general 
revolt. 


480 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The 

Peasant 
Kevolt. 

1347- 
1381. 


CHAP.  III.  through  the  country  at  the  head  of  a  mass  of  peasants 
compelled  the  nobles  whom  he  captured  to  act  as  his  meat- 
tasters  and  to  serve  him  on  their  knees  during  his  repast. 
The  story  of  St.  Edmundsbury  shows  us  what  was  going  on 
in  Suffolk.  Ever  since  the  accession  of  Edwaid  the  Third 
the  townsmen  and  the  villeins  of  their  lands  around  had 
been  at  war  with  the  abbot  and  his  monks.  The  old  and 
more  oppressive  servitude  had  long  passed  away,  but  the 
later  abbots  had  set  themselves  against  the  policy  of  con- 
cession and  conciliation  which  had  brought  about  this 
advance  towards  freedom.  The  gates  of  the  town  were 
still  in  the  abbot's  hands.  He  had  succeeded  in  enforc- 
ing his  claim  to  the  wardship  of  all  orphans  born  within 
his  domain.  From  claims  such  as  these  the  town  could 
never  feel  itself  safe  so  long  as  mysterious  charters  from 
Pope  or  King,  interpreted  cunningly  by  the  wit  of  the  new 
lawyer  class,  lay  stored  in  the  abbey  archives.  But  the 
archives  contained  other  and  hardly  less  formidable  docu- 
ments than  these.  Untroubled  by  the  waste  of  war,  the 
religious  houses  profited  more  than  any  other  landowners 
by  the  general  growth  of  wealth.  They  had  become  great 
proprietors,  money  lenders  to  their  tenants,  extortionate 
as  the  Jew  whom  they  had  banished  from  their  land.  There 
were  few  townsmen  of  St.  Edmund's  who  had  not  some 
bonds  laid  up  in  the  abbey  registry.  In  1327  one  baud  of 
debtors  had  a  covenant  lying  there  for  the  payment  of 
five  hundred  marks  and  fifty  casks  of  wine.  Another 
company  of  the  wealthier  burgesses  were  joint  debtors  on  a 
bond  for  ten  thousand  pounds.  The  new  spirit  of  com- 
mercial activity  joined  with  the  troubles  of  the  time  to 
throw  the  whole  community  into  the  abbot's  hands. 

We  can  hardly  wonder  that  riots,  lawsuits,  and  royal 
commissions  marked  the  relation  of  the  town  and  abbey 
under  the  first  two  Edwards.  Under  the  third  came  an 
open  conflict.  In  1327  the  townsmen  burst  into  the  great 
house,  drove  the  monks  into  the  choir,  and  dragged  them 
thence  to  the  town  prison.  The  abbey  itself  was  sacked ; 


Saint 
Edmunds- 
bury. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  481 

chalices,  missals,  chasubles,  tunicles,  altar  frontals,  the  CHAP.  III. 
books  of  the  library,  the  very  vats  and  dishes  of  the  ^ 
kitchen,  all  disappeared.  The  monks  estimated  their  ^*v%\£ 
losses  at  ten  thousand  pounds.  But  the  townsmen  aimed  1347. 
at  higher  booty  than  this.  The  monks  were  brought  back  1381> 
from  prison  to  their  own  chapter-house,  and  the  spoil  of 
their  registry,  papal  bulls  and  royal  charters,  deeds  and 
bonds  and  mortgages,  were  laid  before  them.  Amidst  the 
wild  threats  of  the  mob  they  were  forced  to  execute  a 
grant  of  perfect  freedom  and  of  a  gild  to  the  town  as 
well  as  of  free  release  to  their  debtors.  Then  they  were 
left  masters  of  the  ruined  house.  But  all  control  over 
town  or  land  was  gone.  Through  spring  and  summer  no 
rent  or  fine  was  paid.  The  bailiffs  arid  other  officers  of  the 
abbey  did  not  dare  to  show  their  faces  in  the  streets. 
News  came  at  last  that  the  abbot  was  in  London,  appeal- 
ing for  redress  to  the  court,  and  the  whole  county  was 
at  once  on  fire.  A  crowd  of  rustics,  maddened  at  the 
thought  of  revived  claims  of  serfage,  of  interminahlo 
suits  of  law,  poured  into  the  streets  of  the  town.  From 
thirty-two  of  the  neighbouring  villages  the  priests 
marched  at  the  head  of  their  flocks  as  on  a  new  crusade. 
The  wild  mass  of  men,  women,  and  children,  twenty 
thousand  in  all,  as  men  guessed,  rushed  again  on  the 
abbey,  and  for  four  November  days  the  \\ork  of  de- 
struction went  on  unhindered.  When  gate,  stables, 
granaries,  kitchen,  infirmary,  hostelry  had  gone  up  in 
flames,  the  multitude  swept  away  to  the  granges  and 
barns  of  the  abbey  farms.  Their  plunder  sho^s  what 
vast  agricultural  proprietors  the  monks  had  become.  A 
thousand  horses,  a  hundred  and  twenty  plough-oxen, 
two  hundred  cows,  three  hundred  bullocks,  three  Hundred 
hogs,  ten  thousand  sheep  were  driven  off,  and  granges 
and  barns  burned  to  the  ground.  It  was  judged  af:er- 
wards  that  sixty  thousand  pounds  would  hardly  cover 
the  loss. 

"Weak    as     was    the    government    of    Mortimer    and 


482 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  III. 

The 

.  Peasant 
Revolt. 

134-7- 
1381. 


St. 

Edmunds- 
bury  in 
1381. 


Isabella,  the  appeal  of  the  abbot  against  this  outrage  was 
promptly  heeded.  A  royal  force  quelled  the  riot,  thirty 
carts  full  of  prisoners  were  despatched  to  Norwich ;  twenty- 
four  of  the  chief  townsmen  with  thirty-two  of  the  village 
priests  were  convicted  as  aiders  and  abettors  of  the  attack 
on  the  abbey,  and  twenty  were  summarily  hanged.  Nearly 
two  hundred  persons  remained  under  sentence  of  outlawry, 
and  for  five  weary  years  their  case  dragged  on  in  the  King's 
courts.  At  last  matters  ended  in  a  ludicrous  outrage. 
Irritated  by  repeated  breaches  of  promise  on  the  abbot's 
part,  the  outlawed  burgesses  seized  him  as  he  lay  in  his 
manor  of  Chevington,  robbed  and  bound  him,  and  carried 
him  off  to  London.  There  he  was  hurried  from  street  to 
street  lest  his  hiding-place  should  be  detected  till  oppor- 
tunity offered  for  shipping  him  off  to  Brabant.  The 
Primate  and  the  Pope  levelled  their  excommunications 
against  the  abbot's  captors  in  vain,  and  though  he  was  at 
last  discovered  and  brought  home  it  was  probably  with 
some  pledge  of  the  arrangement  which  followed  in  1332. 
The  enormous  damages  assessed  by  the  royal  justices  were 
remitted,  the  outlawry  of  the  townsmen  was  reversed,  the 
prisoners  were  released.  On  the  other  hand  the  deeds 
which  had  been  stolen  were  again  replaced  in  the  archives 
of  the  abbey,  and  the  charters  which  had  been  extorted 
from  the  monks  were  formally  cancelled. 

The  spirit  of  townsmen  and  villeins  remained  crushed 
by  their  failure,  and  throughout  the  reign  of  Edward  the 
Third  i.he  oppression  against  which  they  had  risen  went 
on  without  a  check.  It  was  no  longer  the  rough  blow  of 
sheer  force;  it  was  the  more  delicate  but  more  pitiless 
tyranny  of  the  law.  At  Richard's  accession  Prior  John  of 
Cambridge  in  the  vacancy  of  the  abbot  was  in  charge  of 
the  house.  The  prior  was  a  man  skilled  in  all  the  arts  of 
his  day.  In  sweetness  of  voice,  in  knowledge  of  sacred 
song,  his  eulogists  pronounced  him  superior  to  Orpheus,  to 
Nero,  and  to  one  yet  more  illustrious  in  the  Bury  cloister 
though  obscure  to  us,  the  Breton  Belgabred.  John  was 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307-1461.  483 

"industrious  and  subtle,"  and  subtlety  and  industry  found  CHAP.  1IL 
their  scope  in  suit  after  suit  with  the  burgesses  and  farmers  The 
around  him.  "  Faithfully  he  strove  "  says  the  monastic  ^^fit* 
chronicler  "  with  the  villeins  of  Bury  for  the  rights  of  his  1347. 
house."  The  townsmen  he  owned  specially  as  his  "  ad-  1381' 
versaries,"  but  it  was  the  rustics  who  were  to  show  what 
a  hate  he  had  won.  On  the  fifteenth  of  June,  the  day 
of  Wat  Tyler's  fall,  the  howl  of  a  great  multitude  round 
his  manor  house  at  Mildenhail  broke  roughly  on  the 
chauntings  of  Prior  John.  He  strove  to  fly,  but  he  was 
betrayed  by  his  own  servants,  judged  in  rude  mockery 
of  the  law  by  villein  and  bondsman,  condemned  and 
killed.  The  corpse  lay  naked  in  the  open  field  while 
the  mob  poured  unresisted  into  Bury.  Bearing  the  prior's 
head  on  a  lance  before  them  through  the  streets,  the 
frenzied  throng  at  last  reached  the  gallows  where  the  head 
of  one  of  the  royal  judges,  Sir  John  Cavendish,  was  already 
impaled ;  and  pressing  the  cold  lips  together  in  mockery 
of  their  friendship  set  them  side  by  side.  Another  head 
soon  joined  them.  The  abbey  gates  were  burst  open,  and 
the  cloister  filled  with  a  maddened  crowd,  howling  for  a 
new  victim,  John  Lackenheath,  the  warder  of  the  barony. 
Few  knew  him  as  he  stood  among  the  group  of  trembling 
monks,  but  he  courted  death  with  a  contemptuous  courage. 
"  I  am  the  man  you  seek,"  he  said,  stepping  forward  ;  and 
in  a  minute,  with  a  mighty  roar  of  "  Devil's  son  !  Monk  ! 
Traitor ! '  he  was  swept  to  the  gallows,  and  his  head 
hacked  from  his  shoulders.  Then  the  crowd  rolled  back 
again  to  the  abbey  gate,  and  summoned  the  monks  before 
them.  They  told  them  that  now  for  a  long  time  they  had 
oppressed  their  fellows,  the  burgesses  of  Bury ;  wherefore 
they  willed  that  in  the  sight  of  the  Commons  they  should 
forthwith  surrender  their  bonds  and  charters.  The  monks 
brought  the  parchments  to  the  market-place  ;  many  which 
were  demanded  they  swore  they  could  not  find.  A  com- 
promise was  at  last  patched  up  ;  and  it  was  agreed  that 
the  charters  should  be  surrendered  till  the  future  abbot 


484  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  III.  should  confirm  the  liberties  of  the  town.     Then,  unable  to 

Xhe  do  more,  the  crowd  ebbed  away. 

Bevoit*  A  scene  less  violent,  but  even  more  picturesque,  went  on 

1347-  the  same  day  at  St.  Alban's.     William  Grindecobbe,  the 

}'  leader  of  its  townsmen,  returned  with  one  of  the  charters 

Close  of    of  emancipation   which   Richard    had   granted   after    his 

the  rising.    .  . 

interview  at  Mile-end  to  the  men  of  Essex  and  Hert- 
fordshire, and  breaking  into  the  abbey  precincts  at  the 
head  of  the  burghers,  forced  the  abbot  to  deliver  up  the 
charters  which  bound  the  town  in  bondage  to  his  house. 
But  a  more  striking  proof  of  servitude  than  any  charters 
could  give  remained  in  the  mill-stones  which  after  a  long 
suit  at  law  had  been  adjudged  to  the  abbey  and  placed 
within  its  cloister  as  a  triumphant  witness  that  no  towns- 
man might  grind  corn  within  the  domain  of  the  abbey 
save  at  the  abbot's  mill.  Bursting  into  the  cloister,  the 
burghers  now  tore  the  mill-stones  from  the  iioor,  and 
broke  them  into  small  pieces,  "like  blessed  bread  in 
church,"  which  each  might  carry  off  to  show  something 
of  the  day  when  their  freedom  was  won  again.  But  it  was 
hardly  won  when  it  was  lost  anew.  The  quiet  withdrawal 
and  dispersion  of  the  peasant  armies  with  their  charters  of 
emancipation  gave  courage  to  the  nobles.  Their  panic 
passed  away.  The  warlike  Bishop  of  Norwich  fell  lance 
in  hand  on  Litster's  camp,  and  scattered  the  peasants  of 
Norfolk  at  the  first  shock.  Richard  with  an  army  of  forty 
thousand  men  inarched  in  triumph  through  Kent  and 
Essex,  and  spread  terror  by  the  ruthlessness  of  his  execu- 
tions. At  Waltham  he  was  met  by  the  display  of  his 
own  recent  charters  and  a  protest  from  the  Essex  men 
that  "  they  were  so  far  as  freedom  went  the  peers  of 
their  lords."  But  they  were  to  learn  the  worth  of  a 
king's  word.  "  Villeins  you  were,"  answered  Richnrd, 
"and  villeins  you  are.  In  bondage  you  shall  abide, 
and  that  not  your  old  bondage,  but  a  worse!"  The 
stubborn  resistance  which  he  met  showed  that  the  temper 
of  the  people  was  not  easily  broken.  The  villagers  oi 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  485 

Billericay    threw  themselves  into  the  woods  and  fought  CHAP.  III. 
two  hard  fights  before  they  were  reduced  to  submission.     It        j^e 
was  only  by  threats  of  death  that  verdicts  of  guilty  could     ^Voit* 
be   wrung  from  Essex   jurors    when    the  leaders    of   the     1347- 
revolt  were  brought  before  them.    Grindecobbe  was  offered     1^?' 
his  life  if  he  would  persuade  his  followers  at  St.  Alban's 
to  restore  the  charters  they  had  wrung  from  the  monks. 
He  turned  bravely  to  his  fellow-townsmen  and  bade  them 
take  no  thought  for  his  trouble.     "  If  I  die,"  he  said,  "  I 
shall   die   for  the  cause  of  the  freedom    we    have  won, 
counting  myself  happy  to  end  my  life  by  such  a  martyrdom. 
Do  then  to-day  as  you  would  have  done  had  I  been  killed 
yesterday."    But  repression  went  pitilessly  on,  and  through 
the  summer  and  the  autumn  seven  thousand  men  are  said 
to  have  Derished  on  the  gallows  or  the  field. 

VOL.  I.— 32 


CHAPTER  IV. 

RICHARD  THE  SECOND. 

1381—1400. 

Results  of  TERRIBLE  as  were  the  measures  of  repression  which 
the  followed  the  Peasant  Revolt,  and  violent  as  was  the 
Revolt,  passion  of  reaction  which  raged  among  the  proprietary 
classes  at  its  close,  the  end  of  the  rising  was  in  fact 
secured.  The  words  of  Grindecobbe  ere  his  death  were 
a  prophecy  which  time  fulfilled.  Cancel  charters  of 
manumission  as  the  council  might,  serfage  was  henceforth 
a  doomed  and  perishing  thing.  The  dread  of  another 
outbreak  hung  round  the  employer.  The  attempts  to  bring 
back  obsolete  services  quietly  died  away.  The  old  process 
of  enfranchisement  went  quietly  on.  During  the  century 
and  a  half  whish  followed  the  Peasant  Eevolt  villeinage 
died  out  so  rapidly  that  it  became  a  rare  and  antiquated 
thing.  The  class  of  small  freeholders  sprang  fast  out  of 
the  wreck  of  it  into  numbers  and  importance.  In  twenty 
years  more  they  were  in  fact  recognized  as  the  basis  of  our 
electoral  system  in  every  English  county.  The  Labour 
Statutes  proved  as  ineffective  as  of  old  in  enchaining 
labour  or  reducing  its  price.  A  hundred  years  after  the 
Black  Death  the  wages  of  an  English  labourer  was  suf- 
ficient to  purchase  twice  the  amount  of  the  necessaries  of 
life  which  could  have  been  obtained  for  the  wages  paid 
under  Edward  the  Third.  The  incidental  descriptions 
of  the  life  of  the  working  classes  which  we  find  in 
Piers  Ploughman  show  that  this  increase  of  social  comfort 


BOOK  iv.J        THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


487 


had  been  going  on  even  during  the  troubled  period  CHAP.  IV. 
which  preceded  the  outbreak  of  the  peasants,  and  it  went  Bichard 
on  faster  after  the  revolt  was  over.  But  inevitable  as  such  g^nd 
a  progress  was,  every  step  of  it  was  taken  in  the  teeth  of  ISBI- 
the  wealthier  classes.  Their  temper  indeed  at  the  close  of  l™°- 
the  rising  was  that  of  men  frenzied  by  panic  and  the 
taste  of  blood.  They  scouted  all  notion  of  concession. 
The  .stubborn  will  of  the  conquered  was  met  by  as 
stubborn  a  will  in  their  conquerors.  The  royal  Council 
showed  its  sense  of  the  danger  of  a  mere  policy  of 
resistance  by  submitting  the  question  of  enfranchise- 
ment to  the  Parliament  which  assembled  in  November 
1381  with  words  which  suggested  a  compromise.  "  If 
you  desire  to  enfranchise  and  set  at  liberty  the  said  serfs," 
ran  the  royal  message,  "  by  your  common  assent,  as  the 
King  has  Wen  informed  that  some  of  you  desire,  he  will 
consent  to  your  prayer."  But  no  thoughts  of  compromise 
influenced  the  landowners  in  their  reply.  The  King's 
grant  and  letters,  the  Parliament  answered  with  perfect 
truth,  were  legally  null  and  void :  their  serfs  were  their 
goods,  and  the  King  could  not  take  their  goods  from  them 
but  by  their  own  consent  "  And  this  consent,"  they 
ended,  "  we  have  never  given  and  never  will  give,  were  we 
all  to  die  in  one  day."  Their  temper  indeed  expressed  itself 
in  legislation  which  was  a  fit  sequel  to  the  Statutes  of 
Labourers.  They  forbade  the  child  of  any  tiller  of  the 
soil  to  be  apprenticed  in  a  town.  They  prayed  the  King 
to  ordain  "  that  no  bondman  nor  bondwoman  shall  place 
their  children  at  school,  as  has  been  done,  so  as  to  advance 
their  children  in  the  world  by  their  going  into  the  church." 
The  new  colleges  which  were  being  founded  at  the  Uni- 
versities at  this  moment  closed  their  gates  upon  villeins. 

The  panic  which  produced  this  frenzied  reaction  against    Religious 
all  projects  of  social  reform  produced  inevitably  as  frenzied    reaction- 
a  panic  of  reaction  against  all  plans  for  religious  reform. 
Wyclif  had  been  supported  by  the  Lancastrian  party  till 
the  very  eve  of  the  Peasant  Revolt.     But  with  the  rising 


488  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         BOOK 

3»AP.  IV.  his  whole  work  seemed  suddenly  undone.  The  quarrel 
Richard  between  the  baronage  and  the  Church  on  which  his 
Second,  political  action  had  as  yet  been  grounded  was  hushed  in  the 
1381-  presence  of  a  common  danger.  His  "  poor  preachers  "  were 
IAOO.  i00]-eci  Upon  as  missionaries  of  socialism.  The  friars 
charged  Wyclif  with  being  a  "  sower  of  strife,  who  by  his 
serpentlike  instigation  had  set  the  serf  against  his  lord," 
and  though  he  tossed  back  the  charge  with  disdain  he  had 
to  bear  a  suspicion  which  was  justified  by  the  conduct  of 
some  of  his  followers.  John  Ball,  who  had  figured  in  the 
front  rank  of  the  revolt,  was  falsely  named  as  one  of  his 
adherents,  and  was  alleged  to  have  denounced  in  his  last 
hour  the  conspiracy  of  the  •''  Wyclifites."  Wyclif 's  most 
prominent  scholar,  Nicholas  Herford,  was  said  to  have 
openly  approved  the  brutal  murder  of  Archbishop  Sudbury. 
Whatever  belief  such  charges  might  gain,  it  is  certain 
that  from  this  moment  all  plans  for  the  reorganization  of 
the  Church  were  confounded  in  the  general  odium  which 
attached  to  the  projects  of  the  peasant  leaders,  and 
that  any  hope  of  ecclesiastical  reform  at  the  hands  of 
the  baronage  and  the  Parliament  was  at  an  end.  But 
even  if  the  Peasant  Eevolt  had  not  deprived  Wyclif  of 
the  support  of  the  aristocratic  party  with  whom  he  had 
hitherto  co-operated,  their  alliance  must  have  been  dissolved 
by  the  new  theological  position  which  he  had  already  taken 
up.  Some  months  before  the  outbreak  of  the  insurrection 
he  had  by  one  memorable  step  passed  from  the  position  of 
a  reformer  of  the  discipline  and  political  relations  of  the 
Church  to  that  of  a  protester  against  its  cardinal  beliefs. 
If  there  was  one  doctrine  upon  which  the  supremacy  of 
the  Mediaeval  Church  rested,  it  was  the  doctrine  of  Tran- 
substantiation.  It  was  by  his  exclusive  right  to  the  per- 
formance of  the  miracle  which  was  wrought  in  the  mass 
that  the  lowliest  priest  was  raised  high  above  princes. 
With  the  formal  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantia- 
tion  which  Wyclif  issued  in  the  spring  of  1381  began  that 
great  movement  of  religious  revolt  which  ended  more  than 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  489 


a  century  after  in  the  establishment  of  religious  freedom   CHAP.  IV. 
by  severing  the  mass  of  the  Teutonic  peoples  from  the     Diehard 
general  body  of  the  Catholic  Church.     The  act  was  the      second 
bolder  that   he  stood  utterly  alone.     The   University  of     i^\. 
Oxf'ord,  in  which  his  influence  had  been  hitherto  all-power-      1AO°- 
ful,  at  once  condemned  him.      John  of  Gaunt  enjoined 
him   to  be   silent.     \Vyclif  was   presiding  as  Doctor   of 
Divinity   over   some  disputations  in   the  schools  of   the 
Augustinian  Canons  when  his  academical  condemnation 
was  publicly  read,  but  though  startled  for  the  moment  he 
at  once  challenged  Chancellor  or  doctor  to  disprove  the 
conclusions  at  which  he  had  arrived.     The  prohibition  of 
the  Duke  of  Lancaster  he  met  by  an  open  avowal  of  his 
teaching,  a  confession  which  closes  proudly  with,  the  quiet 
words,  "  I  believe  that  in  the  end  the  truth  will  conquer." 

For  the  moment  his  courage  dispelled  the  panic  around  Ri*«  of 
him.  The  University  responded  to  his  appeal,  and  by  dis-  ° 
placing  his  opponents  from  office  tacitly  adopted  his  cause. 
But  Wyclif  no  longer  looked  for  support  to  the  learned  or 
wealthier  classes  on  whom  he  had  hitherto  relied.  He 
appealed,  and  the  appeal  is  memorable  as  the  first  of  such 
a  kind  in  our  history,  to  England  at  large.  With  an 
amazing  industry  he  issued  tract  after  tract  in  the  tongue 
of  the  people  itself.  The  dry,  syllogistic  Latin,  the  abstruse 
and  involved  argument  which  the  great  doctor  had  ad- 
dressed to  his  academic  hearers,  were  suddenly  flung  aside, 
and  by  a  transition  which  marks  the  wonderful  genius  of 
the  man  the  schoolman  was  transformed  into  the  pamph- 
leteer. If  Chaucer  is  the  father  of  our  later  English 
poetry,  Wyclif  is  the  father  of  our  later  English  prosa 
The  rough,  clear,  homely  English  of  his  tracts,  the  speech 
of  the  ploughman  and  the  trader  of  the  day  though 
coloured  with  the  picturesque  phraseology  of  the  Bible, 
is  in  its  literary  use  as  distinctly  a  creaiion  of  his  own  as 
the  style  in  which  he  embodied  it,  the  terse  vehement 
sentences,  the  stinging  sarcasms,  the  hard  antitheses  which 
roused  the  dullest  mind  like  a  whip.  Once  fairly  freed 


•  •.* 


490 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1381- 
1400. 


3HAP.  IV.  from  the  trammels  of  unquestioning  belief,  Wyclifs  mind 
Richard  worked  fast  in  its  career  of  scepticism.  Pardons,  indul- 
Second.  gences,  absolutions,  pilgrimages  to  the  shrines  of  the  saints, 
worship  of  their  images,  worship  of  the  saints  themselves, 
were  successively  denied.  A  formal  appeal  to  the  Bible  as 
the  one  ground  of  faith,  coupled  with  an  assertion  of  the 
right  of  every  instructed  man  to  examine  the  Bible  for 
himself,  threatened  the  very  groundwork  of  the  older 
dogmatism  with  ruin.  Nor  were  these  daring  denials 
confined  to  the  small  circle  of  scholars  who  still  clung 
to  him.  The  "  Simple  Priests  "  were  active  in  the  diffusion 
of  their  master's  doctrines,  and  how  rapid  their  progress 
must  have  been  we  may  see  from  the  panic-struck  exaggera- 
tions of  their  opponents.  A  few  years  later  they  com- 
plained that  the  followers  of  Wyclif  abounded  everywhere 
and  in  all  classes,  among  the  baronage,  in  the  citiesr 
among  the  peasantry  of  the  country-side,  even  in  the 
monastic  cell  itself.  "  Every  second  man  one  meets  is  a 
Lollard." 

"  Lollard,"  a  word  which  probably  means  "  idle  babbler,  " 
was  the  nickname  of  scorn  with  which  the  orthodox 
Churchmen  chose  to  insult  their  assailants.  But  this 
rapid  increase  changed  their  scorn  into  vigorous  action. 
In  1382  Courtenay,  who  had  now  become  Archbishop, 
summoned  a  council  at  Blackfriars  and  formally  submitted 
twenty-four  propositions  drawn  from  Wyclif's  works.  An 
earthquake  in  the  midst  of  the  proceedings  terrified  every 
prelate  but  the  resolute  Primate  ;  the  expulsion  of  ill 
humours  from  the  earth,  he  said,  was  of  good  omen  for  the 
expulsion  of  ill  humours  from  the  Church;  and  the  con- 
demnation was  pronounced.  Then  the  Archbishop  turned 
fiercely  upon  Oxford  as  the  fount  and  centre  of  the  new 
heresies.  In  an  English  sermon  at  St.  Frideswide's 
Nicholas  Herford  had  asserted  the  truth  of  Wyclif's 
doctrines,  and  Courtenay  ordered  the  Chancellor  to  silence 
him  and  his  adherents  on  pain  of  being  himself  treated  as 
a  heretic.  The  Chancellor  fell  back  on  the  liberties  of  the 


1V.J  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  491 

University,  and  appointed  as  preacher  another  Wyclifite,  CHAP.  IV. 
Repyugdon,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  style  the  Lollards  m^;rd 
"  holy  priests,"  and  to  affirm  that  they  were  protected  by  Becond 
John  ot  Gauut.  Party  spirit  meanwhile  ran  high  among  1331. 
the  students.  The  bulk  of  them  sided  with  the  Lollard  14O° 
leaders,  and  a  Carmelite,  Peter  Stokes,  who  had  procured 
the  Archbishop's  letters,  cowered  panic  stricken  in  his 
chamber  while  the  Chancellor,  protected  by  an  escort  of  a 
huudred  townsmen,  listened  approvingly  to  Repyngdon's 
defiance.  "  I  dare  go  no  further,"  wrote  the  poor  Friar  to  the 
Archbishop,  "  for  fear  of  death  ; "  but  he  mustered  courage 
at  last  to  descend  into  the  schools  where  Repyngdon  was 
now  maintaining  that  the  clerical  order  was  "  better  when 
it  was  but  nine  years  old  than  now  that  it  has  grown  to  a 
thousand  years  and  more."  The  appearance  however  of 
scholars  in  arms  again  drove  Stokes  to  fly  in  despair  to 
Lambeth,  while  a  new  heretic  in  open  Congregation  main- 
tained Wyclif's  denial  of  Transubstantiation.  "There  is 
no  idolatry,"  cried  William  James, "  save  in  the  Sacrament 
of  the  Altar."  "  You  speak  like  a  wise  man,"  replied  the 
Chancellor,  Robert  Rygge.  Courtenay  however  was  not 
the  man  to  bear  defiance  tamely,  and  his  summons  to 
Lambeth  wrested  a  submission  from  Rygge  which  was 
only  accepted  on  his  pledge  to  suppress  the  Lollardism  of 
the  University.  "  I  dare  not  publish  them,  on  fear  of 
death,"  exclaimed  the  Chancellor  when  Courteuay  handed 
him  his  letters  of  condemnation.  "  Then  is  your  Univeisity 
an  open  fautor  of  heretics "  retorted  the  Primate  "  if  it 
suffers  not  the  Catholic  truth  to  be  proclaimed  within  its 
bounds."  The  royal  Council  supported  the  Archbishop's 
injunction,  but  the  publication  of  the  decrees  at  once  set 
Oxford  on  fire.  The  scholars  threatened  death  against 
the  friars,  "crying  that  they  wished  to  destroy  the 
University."  The  masters  suspended  Henry  Crump  from 
teaching  as  a  troubler  of  the  public  peace  for  calling  the 
Lollards  "  heretics."  The  Crown  however  at  last  stepped 
in  to  Courtenay 's  aid,  and  a  royal  writ  ordered  the 


492 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1381 

1400. 


Wyclifs 
Bible. 


CHAP.  IV.  instant  banishment  of  all  favourers  of  Wyclif  with  the 
Bichard  seizure  and  destruction  of  all  Lollard  books  on  pain  of 
Second,  forfeiture  of  the  University's  privileges.  The  threat  pro- 
duced its  effect.  Herford  and  Eepyrigdon  appealed  in 
vain  to  John  of  Gaunt  for  protection  ;  the  Duke  himself 
denounced  them  as  heretics  against  the  Sacrament  of  the 
Altar,  and  after  much  evasion  they  were  forced  to  make  a 
formal  submission.  Within  Oxford  itself  the  suppression 
of  Lollardism  was  complete,  but  with  the  death  of  religious 
freedom  all  trace  of  intellectual  life  suddenly  disappears. 
The  century  which  followed  the  triumph  of  Courtenay  is 
the  most  barren  in  its  annals,  nor  was  the  sleep  of  the 
University  broken  till  the  advent  of  the  New  Learning 
restored  to  it  some  of  the  life  and  liberty  which  the 
Primate  had  so  roughly  trodden  out. 

Nothing  marks  more  strongly  the  grandeur  of  Wyclifs 
position  as  the  last  of  the  great  schoolmen  than  the  reluc- 
tance of  so  bold  a  man  as  Courtenay  even  after  his  triumph 
over  Oxford  to  take  extreme  measures  against  the  head 
of  Lollardry.  Wyclif,  though  summoned,  had  made  no 
appearance  before  the  "Council  of  the  Earthquake." 
"  Pontius  Pilate  and  Herod  are  made  friends  to-day,"  was 
his  bitter  comment  on  the  new  union  which  proved  to 
have  sprung  up  between  the  prelates  and  the  monastic 
orders  who  had  so  long  been  at  variance  with  each  other ; 
"  since  they  have  made  a  heretic  of  Christ,  it  is  an  easy 
inference  for  them  to  count  simple  Christians  heretics." 
He  seems  indeed  to  have  been  sick  at  the  moment, 
but  the  announcement  of  the  final  sentence  roused  him 
to  life  again.  He  petitioned  the  King  and  Parliament 
that  he  might  be  allowed  freely  to  prove  the  doctrines 
he  had  put  forth,  and  turning  with  characteristic 
energy  to  the  attack  of  his  assailants,  he  asked  that  all 
religious  vows  might  be  suppressed,  that  tithes  might  be 
diverted  to  the  maintenance  of  the  poor  and  the  clergy 
maintained  by  the  free  alms  of  their  flocks,  that  the 
Statutes  of  Provisors  and  Praemunire  might  be  enforced 


iv.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307-1461.  493 

against  the  Papacy,  that  Churchmen  might  be  declared  CHAP.  IV. 
incapable  of  secular  offices,  and  imprisonment  for  excorn-  Bi^r<i 
municution  cease.  Finally  in  the  teeth  of  the  council's  second, 
condemnation  he  demanded  that  the  doctrine  of  the  issi- 
Eucharist  which  he  advocated  might  be  freely  taught.  If  1^5>- 
he  appeared  in  the  following  year  before  the  convocation 
at  Oxford  it  was  to  perplex  his  opponents  by  a  display  of 
scholastic  logic  which  permitted  him  to  retire  without  any 
retractation  of  his  sacramental  heresy.  For  the  time  his 
opponents  seemed  satisfied  with  his  expulsion  from  the 
University,  but  in  his  retirement  at  Lutterworth  he  was 
forging  during  these  troubled  years  the  great  weapon  which, 
wielded  by  other  hands  than  his  own,  was  to  produce  so 
terrible  an  effect  on  the  triumphant  hierarchy.  An  earlier 
translation  of  the  Scriptures,  in  part  of  which  he  was 
aided  by  his  scholar  Herford,  was  being  revised  and  brought 
to  the  second  form  which  is  better  known  as  "  Wyclif  s 
Bible  "  when  death  drew  near.  The  appeal  of  the  prelates 
to  Rome  was  answered  at  last  by  a  Brief  ordering  him  to 
appear  at  the  Papal  Court.  His  failing  strength  exhausted 
itself  in  a  sarcastic  i-ply  which  explained  that  his  re- 
fusal to  comply  with  the  summons  simply  sprang  from 
broken  health.  "  I  am  always  glad,"  ran  the  ironical 
ans'ver,  "  to  explain  my  faith  to  any  one,  and  above  all  to 
the  Bishop  of  Borne  ;  for  I  take  it  for  granted  that  if  it  be 
orthodox  he  will  confirm  it,  if  it  be  erroneous  he  will 
correct  it.  I  assume  too  that  as  chief  Vicar  of  Christ 
upon  earth  the  Bishop  of  Rome  is  of  all  mortal  men  most 
bound  to  the  law  of  Christ's  Gospel,  for  among  the  disciples 
of  Christ  a  majority  is  not  reckoned  by  simply  counting 
heads  in  the  fashion  of  this  world,  but  according  to  the 
imitation  of  Christ  on  either  side.  Xow  Christ  during  His 
life  upon  earth  was  of  all  men  the  poorest,  casting  from 
Him  all  worldly  authority.  I  deduce  from  these  premises 
as  a  simple  counsel  of  my  own  that  the  Pope  should 
surrender  all  temporal  authority  to  the  civil  power  and 
advise  his  clergy  to  do  the  same."  The  boldness  of  his 


494  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


OHAP.  IV.  words  sprang  perhaps  from  a  knowledge  that  his  end  was 

Richard     near.     The  terrible  strain  on  energies  enfeebled  by  age  and 

8ecoad.     study  had  at  last  brought  its  inevitable  result,  and  a  stroke 

lain-     °f  paralysis  while  Wyclif  was  hearing  mass  in  his  parish 

i4oo.     ci,nrcn  of  Lutterworth  was  followed  on  the  next  day  by 

his  death. 
The  The    persecution  of  Courtenay  deprived  the   religious 

viovemeni  re^orm  °*  i(s  more  learned  adherents  and  of  the  support 
of  the  Universities.  Wyclif 's  death  robbed  it  of  its  head 
at  a  moment  when  little  had  been  done  save  a  work  of 
destruction.  From  that  moment  Lollardism  ceased  to  be 
in  any  sense  an  organized  movement  and  crumbled  into  a 
general  spirit  of  revolt.  All  the  religious  and  social  dis- 
content of  the  times  floated  instinctively  to  this  new  centre. 
The  socialist  dreams  of  the  peasantry,  the  new  and  keener 
spirit  of  personal  morality,  the  hatred  ot  the  friars,  the 
jealousy  of  the  great  lords  towards  the  prelacy,  the 
fanaticism  of  the  reforming  zealot  were  blended  together 
in  a  common  hostility  to  the  Church  and  a  common 
resolve  to  substitute  personal  religion  for  its  dogmatic 
and  ecclesiastical  system.  But  it  was  this  want  of  organi- 
zation, this  looseness  and  fluidity  of  the  new  movement, 
that  made  it  penetrate  through  every  class  of  society. 
Women  as  well  as  men  became  the  preachers  of  the 
new  sect.  Lollardry  had  its  own  schools,  its  own 
books ;  its  pamphlets  were  passed  everywhere  from 
hand  to  hand  ;  scurrilous  ballads  which  revived  the  old 
attacks  of  "  Golias"  in  the  Angevin  times  upon  the  wealth 
and  luxury  of  the  clergy  were  sung  at  every  corner. 
Nobles  like  the  Earl  of  Salisbury  and  at  a  later  time  Sir 
John  Oldcastle  placed  themselves  openly  at  the  head  of 
the  cause  and  threw  open  their  gates  as  a  refuge  for  its 
missionaries.  London  in  its  hatred  of  the  clergy  became 
fiercely  Lollard,  and  defended  a  Lollard  preacher  who 
ventured  >to  advocate  the  new  doctrines  from  the  pulpit  of 
St.  Paul's.  One  of  its  mayors,  John  of  Northampton, 
showed  the  influence  of  the  new  morality  by  the  Puritan 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


495 


spirit  in  which  he  dealt  with  the  morals  of  the  city. 
Compelled  to  act,  as  he  said,  by  the  remissness  of  the  clergy 
who  connived  for  money  at  every  kind  of  debauchery,  he 
arrested  the  loose  women,  cut  off  their  hair,  and  carted 
them  through  the  streets  as  objects  of  public  scorn.  But 
the  moral  spirit  of  the  new  movement,  though  infinitely 
its  grander  side,  was  less  dangerous  to  the  Church  than  its 
open  repudiation  of  the  older  doctrines  and  systems  of 
Christendom.  Out  of  the  floating  mass  of  opinion  which 
bore  the  name  of  Lollardry  one  faith  gradually  evolved 
itself,  a  faith  in  the  sole  authority  of  the  Bible  as  a  source 
of  religious  truth.  The  translation  of  Wyclif  did  its  work. 
Scripture,  complains  a  canon  of  Leicester,  "  became  a  vul- 
gar thing,  and  more  open  to  lay  folk  and  wranen  that  knew 
how  to  read  than  it  is  wont  to  be  to  clerks  themselves." 
Consequences  which  Wyclif  had  perhaps  shrunk  from 
drawing  were  boldly  drawn  by  his  disciples.  The  Church 
was  declared  to  have  become  apostate,  its  priesthood  was 
denounced  as  no  priesthood,  its  sacraments  as  idolatry. 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  clergy  attempted  to  stifle  the 
new  movement  by  their  old  weapon  of  persecution.  The 
jealousy  entertained  by  the  baronage  and  gentry  of  every 
pretension  of  the  Church  to  secular  power  foiled  its  efforts 
to  make  persecution  effective.  At  the  moment  of  the 
Peasant  Revolt  Courtenay  procured  the  enactment  of  a 
statute  which  commissioned  the  sheriffs  to  seize  all  persons 
convicted  before  the  bishops  of  preaching  heresy.  But  the 
statute  was  repealed  in  the  next  session,  and  the  Commons 
added  to  the  bitterness  of  the  blow  by  their  protest  that 
they  considered  it  "  in  nowise  their  interest  to  be  more 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  prelates  or  more  bound  by 
them  than  their  ancestors  had  been  in  times  past."  Heresy 
indeed  was  still  a  felony  by  the  common  law,  and  if  as  yet 
we  meet  with  no  instances  of  the  punishment  of  heretics 
by  the  fire  it  was  because  the  threat  of  such  a  death  was 
commonly  followed  by  the  recantation  of  the  Lollard. 
But  the  restriction  of  each  bishop's  jurisdiction  within  the 


CHAP.  IV. 

Richard 

the 
Second. 

1381 
1400. 


Lollardn, 
and  ths 
Church. 


496 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         [BOOK 


1381- 

J-iOO. 


CHAP.  IV.  limits  of  his  own  diocese  made  it  impossible  to  arrest 
Bichard  the  wandering  preachers  of  the  new  doctrine,  and  the 
Second.  c^v^  punishment — even  if  it  had  been  sanctioned  by 
public  opinion — seems  to  have  long  fallen  into  desuetude. 
Experience  proved  to  the  prelates  that  few  sheriffs  would 
arrest  on  the  mere  warrant  of  an  ecclesiastical  officer,  and 
that  no  royal  court  would  issue  the  writ  "  for  the  burn- 
ing of  a  heretic  "  on  a  bishop's  requisition.  But  powerless 
as  the  efforts  of  the  Church  were  for  purposes  of  repression, 
they  were  effective  in  rousing  the  temper  of  the  Lollards 
into  a  bitter  fanaticism.  The  heretics  delighted  in  out- 
raging the  religious  sense  of  their  day.  One  Lollard 
gentleman  took  home  the  sacramental  wafer  and  lunched 
on  it  with  wine  and  oysters.  Another  flung  some  images 
of  the  saints  into  his  cellar.  The  Lollard  preachers  stirred 
up  riots  by  the  virulence  of  their  preaching  against  the 
friars.  But  they  directed  even  fiercer  invectives  against 
the  wealth  and  secularity  of  the  great  Churchmen.  In 
a  formal  petition  which  was  laid  before  Parliament  in 
3395  they  mingled  denunciations  of  the  riches  of  the 
clergy  with  an  open  profession  of  disbelief  in  transub- 
stantiation,  priesthood,  pilgrimages,  and  image  worship, 
and  a  demand,  which  illustrates  the  strange  medley  of 
opinions  which  jostled  together  in  the  new  movement, 
that  war  might  be  declared  unchristian  and  that  trades 
such  as  those  of  the  goldsmith  or  the  armourer,  which  were 
contrary  to  apostolical  poverty,  might  be  banished  from 
the  realm.  They  contended  (and  it  is  remarkable  tshat  a 
Parliament  of  the  next  reign  adopted  the  statement)  that 
from  the  superfluous  revenues  of  the  Church,  if  once  they 
were  applied  to  purposes  of  general  utility,  the  King  might 
maintain  fifteen  earls,  fifteen  hundred  knights,  and  six 
thousand  squires,  besides  endowing  a  hundred  hospitals 
for  the  relief  of  the  poor. 

The  distress  of  the  landowners, the  general  disorganization 
of  the  country,  in  every  part  of  which  bands  of  marauders 
were  openly  defying  the  law,  the  panic  of  the  Church  and 


Disasters 
of  the 
War. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  497 

of  society  at  large  as  the  projects  of  the  Lollards  shaped  CHAP.  IV. 
themselves  into  more  daring  and  revolutionary  forms,  added  Bichard 
a  fresh  keenness  to  the  national  discontent  at  the  languid  second 
and  inefficient  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  junction  of  1391. 
the  French  and  Spanish  fleets  had  made  them  masters  of  1^°° 
the  seas,  and  what  fragments  were  left  of  Guienue  lay 
at  their  mercy.  The  royal  Council  strove  to  detach  the 
House  of  Luxemburg  from  the  French  alliance  by  winning 
for  Eichard  the  hand  of  Anne,  a  daughter  of  the  late 
Emperor  Charles  the  Fourth  who  had  fled  at  Cre9y,  and 
sister  of  King  Wenzel  of  Bohemia  who  was  now  King 
of  the  Eomans.  But  the  marriage  remained  without  poli- 
tical result,  save  that  the  Lollard  books  which  were  sent 
into  their  native  country  by  the  Bohemian  servants  of  the 
new  queen  stirred  the  preaching  of  John  Huss  and  the 
Hussite  wars.  Nor  was  English  policy  more  successful  in 
Flanders.  Under  Philip  van  Arteveldt,  the  son  of  the 
leader  of  1345,  the  Flemish  towns  again  sought  the  friend- 
ship of  England  against  France,  but  at  the  close  of  1382 
the  towns  were  defeated  and  their  leader  slain  in  the 
great  French  victory  of  Kosbecque.  An  expedition  to 
Flanders  in  the  following  year  under  the  warlike  Bishop 
of  Norwich  turned  out  a  mere  plunder-raid  and  ended  in 
utter  failure.  A  short  truce  only  gave  France  the  leisure 
to  prepare  a  counter-blow  by  the  despatch  of  a  small  but 
well-equipped  force  under  John  de  Vienne  to  Scotland  in 
1385.  Thirty  thousand  Scots  joined  in  the  advance  of  this 
force  over  the  border:  and  though  northern  England  rose 
with  a  desperate  effort  and  an  English  army  penetrated  as 
far  as  Edinburgh  in  the  hope  of  bringing  the  foe  to  battle 
it  was  forced  to  fall  back  without  an  encounter.  Mean- 
while France  dealt  a  more  terrible  blow  in  the  reduction 
of  Ghent.  The  one  remaining  market  for  English  com- 
merce was  thus  closed  up,  while  the  forces  which  should 
have  been  employed  in  saving  Ghent  and  in  the  protection 
of  the  English  shores  against  the  threat  of  invasion  were 
squandered  by  John  of  Gaunt  in  a  war  which  he  was 


498 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Bichard 

the 
Second. 

1381- 

1400. 


Temper  of 


CHAP.  IV.  carrying  on  along  the  Spanish  frontier  in  pursuit  of  the 
visionary  crown  which  he  claimed  in  his  wife's  right. 
The  enterprize  showed  that  the  Duke  had  now  abandoned 
the  hope  of  directing  affairs  at  home  and  was  seeking  a 
new  sphere  of  activity  abroad.  To  drive  him  from  the 
realm  had  been  from  the  close  of  the  Peasant  Eevolt  the 
steady  purpose  of  the  councillors  who  now  surrounded 
the  young  King,  of  his  favourite  Robert  de  Vere  and  his 
Chancellor  Michael  de  la  Pole,  who  was  raised  in  1385 
to  the  Earldom  of  Suffolk.  The  Duke's  friends  were 
expelled  from  office ;  John  of  Northampton,  the  head  of  his 
adherents  among  the  Commons,  was  thrown  into  prison  ; 
the  Duke  himself  was  charged  with  treason  and  threatened 
with  arrest.  In  1386  John  of  Gaunt  abandoned  the  struggle 
and  sailed  for  Spain. 

Richard  himself  took  part  in  these  measures  against  the 

the  Court.  Duke.  He  was  now  twenty,  handsome  and  golden-haired, 
with  a  temper  capable  of  great  actions  and  sudden  bursts 
of  energy  but  indolent  and  unequal.  The  conception  of 
kingship  in  which  he  had  been  reared  made  him  regard 
the  constitutional  advance  which  had  gone  on  during  the 
war  as  an  invasion  of  the  rights  of  his  Crown.  He  looked 
on  the  nomination  of  the  royal  Council  and  the  great 
officers  of  state  by  the  two  Houses  or  the  supervision  of 
the  royal  expenditure  by  the  Commons  as  infringements 
on  the  prerogative  which  only  the  pressure  of  the  war  and 
the  weakness  of  a  minority  had  forced  the  Crown  to  bow 
to.  The  judgement  of  his  councillors  was  one  with  that 
of  the  King.  Vere  was  no  mere  royal  favourite  ;  he  was 
a  great  noble  and  of  ancient  lineage.  Michael  de  la  Pole 
was  a  man  of  large  fortune  and  an  old  servant  of  the 
Crown ;  he  had  taken  part  in  the  war  for  thirty  years,  and 
had  been  admiral  and  captain  of  Calais.  But  neither 
were  men  to  counsel  the  young  King  wisely  in  his  effort 
to  obtain  independence  at  once  of  Parliament  and  of  the 
great  nobles.  His  first  aim  had  been  to  break  the  pressure 
of  the  royal  house  itself,  and  in  his  encounter  with  John 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


499 


1381 
1400. 


of  Gaunt  he  had  proved  successful.  But  the  departure  CHAP.  IV. 
of  the  Duke  of  Lancaster  only  called  to  the  front  his 
brother  and  his  son.  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester,  had  inherited  much  of  the  lands  and  the 
influence  of  the  old  house  of  Bohun.  Round  Henry, 
Earl  of  Derhy,  the  son  of  John  of  Gaunt  by  Blanche  of 
Lancaster,  the  old  Lancastrian  party  of  constitutional 
opposition  was  once  more  forming  itself.  The  favour 
shown  to  the  followers  of  Wyclif  at  the  Court  threw  on 
the  side  of  this  new  opposition  the  bulk  of  the  bishops  and 
Churchmen.  Richard  himself  showed  no  sympathy  with 
the  Lollards,  but  the  action  of  her  Bohemian  servants 
shows  the  tendencies  of  his  Queen.  Three  members  of  the 
royal  Council  were  patrons  of  the  Lollards,  and  the  Earl  of 
Salisbury,  a  favourite  with  the  King,  was  their  avowed 
head.  The  Commons  displayed  no  hostility  to  the  Lollards 
nor  any  zeal  for  the  Church ;  but  the  lukewarm  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war,  the  profuse  expenditure  of  the  Court,  and 
above  all  the  manifest  will  of  the  King  to  free  himself 
from  Parliamentary  control,  estranged  the  Lower  House. 
Richard's  haughty  words  told  their  own  tale.  When  the 
Parliament  of  1385  called  for  an  enquiry  every  year  into 
the  royal  household,  the  King  replied  he  would  enquire 
when  he  pleased.  When  it  prayed  to  know  the  names  of 
the  officers  of  state,  he  answered  that  he  would  change 
them  at  his  will. 

The  burthen  of  such  answers  and  of  the  policy  they  The  Lord* 
revealed  fell  on  the  royal  councillors,  and  the  departure  of  ppe 
John  of  Gaunt  forced  the  new  opposition  into  vigorous 
action.  The  Parliament  of  1886  called  for  the  removal  of 
Suffolk.  Richard  replied  that  he  would  not  for  such  a 
prayer  dismiss  a  turnspit  of  his  kitchen.  The  Duke  of 
Gloucester  and  Bishop  Arundel  of  Ely  were  sent  by 
the  Houses  as  their  envoys,  and  warned  the  King  that 
should  a  ruler  refuse  to  govern  with  the  advice  of  his 
lords  and  by  mad  counsels  work  out  his  private  purposes 
it  was  lawful  to  depose  him.  The  threat  secured  Suffolk's 


500 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


the 
Second. 

1381 
1400, 


CHAP.  IV.  removal ;  he  was  impeached  for  corruption  and  malad- 
Bichard  ministration,  and  condemned  to  forfeiture  and  imprison- 
ment. It  was  only  by  submitting  to  the  nomination  of  a 
Continual  Council,  with  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  at  its  head, 
that  Richard  could  obtain  a  grant  of  subsidies.  But  the 
Houses  were  no  sooner  broken  up  than  Suffolk  was  released, 
and  in  1387  the  young  King  rode  through  the  country 
calling  on  the  sheriffs  to  raise  men  against  the  barons,  and 
bidding  them  suffer  no  knight  of  '.he  shire  to  be  returned 
for  the  next  Parliament  "  save  one  whom  the  King  and 
his  Council  chose."  The  general  ill- will  foiled  both  his 
efforts :  and  he  was  forced  to  take  refuge  in  an  opinion  of 
five  of  the  judges  that  the  Continual  Council  was  unlawful, 
the  sentence  on  Suffolk  erroneous,  and  that  the  Lords  and 
Commons  had  no  power  to  remove  a  King's  servant. 
Gloucester  answered  the  challenge  by  taking  up  arms,  and 
a  general  refusal  to  fight  for  the  King  forced  Richard  once 
more  to  yield.  A  terrible  vengeance  was  taken  on  his 
supporters  in  the  recent  schemes.  In  the  Parliament  of 
1388  Gloucester,  with  the  four  Earls  of  Derby,  Arundel, 
Warwick,  and  Nottingham  appealed  on  a  charge  of  high 
treason  Suffolk  and  De  Vere,  the  Archbishop  of  York,  the 
Chief  Justice  Tresilian,  and  Sir  Nicholas  Bramber.  The 
first  two  fled,  Suffolk  to  France,  De  Vere  after  a  skirmish 
at  Radcot  Bridge  to  Ireland ;  but  the  Archbishop  was  de- 
prived of  his  see,  Bramber  beheaded,  and  Tresilian  hanged. 
The  five  judges  were  banished,  and  Sir  Simon  Burley  with 
three  other  members  of  the  royal  household  sent  to  the 
block. 

At  the  prayer  of  the  "  "Wonderful  Parliament,"  as  some 
called  this  assembly,  or  as  others  with  more  justice  "  The 
Merciless  Parliament,"  it  was  provided  that  all  officers  of 
state  should  henceforth  be  named  in  Parliament  or  by  the 
Continual  Council.  Gloucester  remained  at  the  head  of 
the  latter  body,  but  his  power  lasted  hardly  a  year.  In 
May  1389  Richard  found  himself  strong  enough  to  break 
down  the  government  by  a  word.  Entering  the  Council 


Richartfs 
rule. 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


501 


the 
Second. 


1381 

1400. 


he  suddenly  asked  his  uncle  how  old  he  was.  "Your  CHAV.  IV. 
highness,"  answered  Gloucester,  "  is  in  your  twenty-second 
year  ! "  "Then  I  am  old  enough  to  manage  my  own  affairs," 
said  Eichard  coolly;  "  I  have  been  longer  under  guardian- 
ship than  any  ward  in  my  realm.  I  thank  you  for  your 
past  services,  my  lords,  but  I  need  them,  no  more."  The 
resolution  was  welcomed  by  the  whole  country ;  and  Eichard 
justified  the  country's  hopes  by  wielding  his  new  power 
with  singular  wisdom  and  success.  He  refused  to  recall 
de  Vere  or  the  five  judges.  The  intercession  of  John  of 
Gaunt  on  his  return  from  Spain  brought  about  a  full 
reconciliation  with  the  Lords  Appellant.  A  truce  was 
concluded  with  France,  and  its  renewal  year  after  year 
enabled  the  King  to  lighten  the  burthen  of  taxation. 
Eichard  announced  his  purpose  to  govern  by  advice  of 
Parliament;  he  soon  restored  the  Lords  Appellant  to 
his  Council,  and  committed  the  chief  offices  of  state  to 
great  Churchmen  like  Wykeham  and  Arundel.  A  series 
of  statutes  showed  the  activity  of  the  Houses.  A  Statute 
of  Prnvisors  which  re-enacted  those  of  Edward  the  Third 
was  passed  in  1390 ;  the  Statute  of  Prsemunire,  which 
punished  the  obtaining  of  bulls  or  other  instruments  from 
Eorne  with  forfeiture,  in  1393.  The  lords  were  bridled 
anew  by  a  Statute  of  Maintenance,  which  forbade  their 
violently  supporting  other  men's  causes  in  courts  of  justice 
or  giving  "  livery  "  to  a  host  of  retainers.  The  Statute  of 
Uses  in  1391,  which  rendered  illegal  the  devices  which 
had  been  invented  to  frustrate  that  of  Mortmain,  showed 
the  same  resolve  to  deal  firmly  with  the  Church.  A 
reform  of  the  staple  and  other  mercantile  enactments 
proved  the  King's  care  for  trade.  Throughout  the  legisla- 
tion of  these  eight  years  we  see  the  same  tone  of  coolness 
and  moderation.  Eager  as  he  was  to  win  the  good-will 
of  the  Parliament  and  the  Church,  Eichard  refused  to 
bow  to  the  panic  of  the  landowners  or  to  second  the 
persecution  of  the  priesthood.  The  demands  of  the 
Parliament  that  education  should  be  denied  to  the  sons 

YOL.  I.— 33 


502 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOR 


Richard 

the 
Second. 

1381 
14OO. 

French 

and 
English. 


CHAP.  IV.  of  villeins  was  refused.  Lollardry  as  a  social  danger  was 
held  firmly  at  bay,  and  in  1387  the  King  ordered  Lollard 
books  to  be  seized  and  brought  before  the  Council.  But 
the  royal  officers  showed  little  zeal  in  aiding  the  bishops 
to  seize  or  punish  the  heretical  teachers. 

It  was  in  the  period  of  peace  which  was  won  for  the 
country  by  the  wisdom  and  decision  of  its  young  King 
that  England  listened  to  the  voice  of  her  first  great  singer. 
The  work  of  Chaucer  marks  the  final  settlement  of  the 
English  tongue.  The  close  of  the  great  movement  towards 
national  unity  which  had  been  going  on  ever  since  the 
Conquest  was  shown  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century  by  the  disuse,  even  amongst  the  nobler  classes,  of 
the  French  tongue.  In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  gram- 
mar schools  and  of  the  strength  of  fashion  English  won 
its  way  throughout  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Third  to 
its  final  triumph  in  that  of  his  grandson.  It  was  ordered  to 
be  used  in  courts  of  law  in  1362  "because  the  French 
tongue  is  much  unknown,"  and  in  the  following  year 
it  was  employed  by  the  Chancellor  in  opening  Parlia- 
ment. Bishops  began  to  preach  in  English,  and  the 
English  tracts  of  Wyclif  made  it  once  more  a  literary 
tongue.  We  see  the  general  advance  in  two  passages 
from  writers  of  Edward's  and  Kichard's  reigns.  "  Children 
in  school "  says  Higden,  a  writer  of  the  first  period,  "  against 
the  usage  and  manner  of  all  other  nations  be  compelled 
for  to  leave  their  own  language  and  for  to  construe  their 
lessons  and  their  things  in  French,  and  so  they  have  since 
the  Normans  first  came  into  England.  Also  gentlemen 
children  be  taught  for  to  speak  French  from  the  time  that 
they  be  rocked  in  their  cradle,  and  know  how  to  speak 
and  play  with  a  child's  toy ;  and  uplandish  (or  country) 
men  will  liken  themselves  to  gentlemen,  and  strive  with 
great  busyness  to  speak  French  for  to  be  more  told  of." 
"  This  manner,"  adds  John  of  Trevisa,  Higden's  translator 
in  Richard's  time,  "  was  much  used  before  the  first  murrain 
(the  Black  Death  of  1349),  and  is  since  somewhat  changed. 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


503 


1381 
1400. 


For  John  Cornwal,  a  master  of  grammar,  changed  the  lore  CHAP.  IV. 
in  grammar  school  and  construing  of  French  into  English  ;     Ri^ard 
and  liichard  Pencrych  learned  this  manner  of  teaching  of     second, 
him,  as  other  men  did  of    Pencrych.     So  that  now,  the 
year  of  our  Lord  1385  and  of  the  second  King  Richard 
after  the  Conquest  nine,   in  all  the  grammar  schools  of 
England  children  leaveth    French,    and    construeth    and 
learneth  in  English.     Also  gentlemen  have  now  much  left 
for  to  teach  their  children  French." 

This  drift  towards  a  general  use  of  the  national  tongue  Chaucer. 
told  powerfully  on  literature.  The  influence  of  the  French 
romances  everywhere  tended  to  make  French  the  OIIQ 
literary  language  at  the  opening  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  in  England  this  influence  had  been  backed  by  the 
French  tone  of  the  court  of  Henry  the  Third  and  the  three 
Edwards.  But  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Edward  the 
Third  the  long  French  romances  needed  to  be  trans- 
lated even  for  knightly  hearers.  "  Let  clerks  indite  in 
Latin,"  says  the  author  of  the  "  Testament  of  Love,"  "  and 
let  Frenchmen  in  their  French  also  indite  their  quaint 
terms,  for  it  is  kindly  to  their  mouths ;  and  let  us  show 
our  fantasies  in  such  wordes  as  we  learned  of  our  mother's 
tongue."  But  the  new  national  life  afforded  nobler 
materials  than  "fantasies"  now  for  English  literature. 
With  the  completion  of  the  work  of  national  unity  had 
come  the  completion  of  the  work  of  national  freedom. 
The  vigour  of  English  life  showed  itself  in  the  wide 
extension  of  commerce,  in  the  progress  of  the  towns,  and 
the  upgrowth  of  a  free  yeomanry.  It  gave  even  nobler 
signs  of  its  activity  in  the  spirit  of  national  independence 
and  moral  earnestness  which  awoke  at  the  call  of  Wyclif. 
New  forces  of  thought  and  feeling  which  were  destined 
to  tell  on  every  age  of  our  later  history  broke  their 
way  through  the  crust  of  feudalism  in  the  socialist 
revolt  of  the  Lollards,  and  a  sudden  burst  of  military 
glory  threw  its  glamour  over  the  age  of  Crecj  and 
Poitiers.  It  is  this  new  gladness  of  a  great  people  which 


504 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


[BOOK 


i38i- 
14OO. 


UHAP.  IV.  utters  itself  in  the  verse  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer.  Chaucer 
Richard  was  born  about  1340,  the  son  of  a  London  vintner  who  lived 
Second.  in  Thames  Street ;  and  it  was  in  London  that  the  bulk  of 
his  life  was  spent.  His  family,  though  not  noble,  seems 
to  have  been  of  some  importance,  for  from  the  opening  of 
his  career  we  find  Chaucer  in  close  connexion  with  the 
Court.  At  sixteen  he  was  made  page  to  the  wife  of  Lionel 
of  Clarence;  at  nineteen  he  first  bore  arms  in  the  campaign 
of  1359.  But  he  was  luckless  enough  to  be  made  prisoner ; 
and  from  the  time  of  his  release  after  the  treaty  of  Bre- 
tigny  he  took  no  further  share  in  the  military  enterprizes 
of  his  time.  He  seems  again  to  have  returned  to  service 
about  the  Court,  and  it  was  now  that  his  first  poems  made 
their  appearance,  the  "  Compleynte  to  Pity"  in  1368,  and 
in  1369  the  "  Death  of  Blanch  the  Duchesse,"  the  wife  of 
John  of  Gaunt  who  from  this  time  at  least  may  be  looked 
upon  as  his  patron.  It  may  have  been  to  John's  influence 
that  he  owed  his  employment  in  seven  diplomatic  missions 
which  were  probably  connected  with  the  financial  straits 
of  the  Crown.  Three  of  these,  in  1372,  1374,  and  1378, 
carried  him  to  Italy.  He  visited  Genoa  and  the  brilliant 
court  of  the  Visconti  at  Milan ;  at  Florence,  where  the 
memory  of  Dante,  the  "great  master"  whom  he  com- 
memorates so  reverently  in  his  verse,  was  still  living,  he 
may  have  met  Boccaccio ;  at  Padua,  like  his  own  clerk  of 
Oxenford,  he  possibly  caught  the  story  of  Griseldis  from 
the  lips  of  Petrarca. 

It  was  these  visits  to  Italy  which  gave  us  the  Chaucer 
whom  we  know.  From  that  hour  his  work  stands  out  in 
vivid  contrast  with  the  poetic  literature  from  the  heart 
of  which  it  sprang.  The  long  French  romances  were  the 
product  of  an  age  of  wealth  and  ease,  of  indolent  cur- 
iosity, of  a  fanciful  and  self-indulgent  sentiment.  Of 
the  great  passions  which  gave  life  to  the  Middle  Ages, 
that  of  religious  enthusiasm  had  degenerated  into  the 
conceits  of  Mariolatry,  that  of  war  into  the  extrava- 
gances of  Chivalry.  Love  indeed  remained ;  it  was  the 


His  Early 
Poems. 


IV.l 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


505 


the 

Second. 


1381 

1400. 


one  theme  of  troubadour  and  trouveur;  but  it  was  a  CHAP. 
love  of  refinement,  of  romantic  follies,  of  scholastic  dis-  m 
cussions,  of  sensuous  enjoyment — a  plaything  rather  than 
a  passion.  Nature  had  to  reflect  the  pleasant  indolence  of 
man  ;  the  song  of  the  minstrel  moved  through  a  perpetual 
May-time ;  the  grass  was  ever  green  ;  the  music  of  the 
lark  and  the  nightingale  rang  out  from  field  and  thicket. 
There  was  a  gay  avoidance  of  all  that  is  serious,  moral,  or 
reflective  in  man's  life :  life  was  too  amusing  to  be  serious, 
too  piquant,  too  sentimental,  too  full  of  interest  and  gaiety 
and  chat.  It  was  an  age  of  talk :  "  mirth  is  none  "  says 
Chaucer's  host  "  to  ride  on  by  the  way  dumb  as  a  stone ; " 
and  the  Trouveur  aimed  simply  at  being  the  most  agree- 
able talker  of  his  day.  His  romances,  his  rimes  of  Sir 
Tristram,  his  Romance  of  the  Rose,  are  full  of  colour  and 
fantasy,  endless  in  detail,  but  with  a  sort  of  gorgeous  idle- 
ness about  their  very  length,  the  minuteness  of  their  descrip- 
tion of  outer  things,  the  vagueness  of  their  touch  when  it 
passes  to  the  subtler  inner  world. 

It  was  with  this  literature  that  Chaucer  had  till  now 
been  familiar,  and  it  was  this  which  he  followed  in  his 
earlier  work.  But  from  the  time  of  his  visits  to  Milan 
and  Genoa  his  sympathies  drew  him  not  to  the  dying 
verse  of  France  but  to  the  new  and  mighty  upgrowth  of 
poetry  in  Italy.  Dante's  eagle  looks  at  him  from  the  sun. 
"Fraunces  Petrark,  the  laureat  poete,"  is  to  him  one 
"  whose  rethorique  sweete  enluymned  al  Itail  of  poetrie." 
The  "  Troilus "  which  he  produced  about  1382  is  an 
enlarged  English  version  of  Boccaccio's  "  Filostrato ; " 
the  Knight's  Tale,  whose  first  draft  is  of  the  same 
period,  bears  slight  traces  of  his  Teseide.  It  was  indeed 
the  "  Decameron  "  which  suggested  the  very  form  of  the 
"  Canterbury  Tales,"  the  earliest  of  which,  such  as  those 
of  the  Doctor,  the  Man  of  Law,  the  Clerk,  the  Prioress, 
the  Franklin,  and  the  Squire,  may  probably  be  referred 
like  the  Parliament  of  Foules  and  the  House  of  Fame 
to  this  time  of  Chaucer's  life.  But  even  while  changing, 


506 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV.    as  it  were,  the  front  of  English  poetry  Chaucer  preserves 
Richard     h*8  own  distinct  personality.     If  he  quizzes  in  the  rime 
Second.     °^    ^ir   Thopaz    the   wearisome    idleness    of  the    French 
1381-      romance  he  retains  all  that  was  worth  retaining  of  the 
i4oo.      French  temper,  its  rapidity  and  agility  of  movement,  its 
lightness   and   brilliancy  of  touch,  its  airy  mockery,  its 
gaiety  and  good   humour,   its   critical  coolness  and  self- 
control.     The  French  wit  quickens  in  him  more  than  in 
any  English  writer  the  sturdy  sense  and  shrewdness  of  our 
national  disposition,  corrects  its  extravagance,  and  relieves 
its  somewhat  ponderous  morality.     If  on  the  other  hand 
he  echoes  the  joyous  carelessness  of  the  Italian  tale,  he 
tempers  it  with  the  English  seriousness.     As  he  follows 
Boccaccio  all  his  changes  are  on  the  side  of  purity  ;  and 
when   the   Troilus  of  the  Florentine  ends  with  the   old 
sneer  at  the  changeableness  of  woman  Chaucer  bids  us 
"  look  Godward,"  and  dwells  on  the  unchangeableness  of 
Heaven. 

The  genius  of  Chaucer  however  was  neither  French  nor 
Italian,  whatever  element  it  might  borrow  from  either 
literature,  but  English  to  the  core;  and  from  the  year  1384 
all  trace  of  foreign  influence  dies  away.  Chaucer  had  now 
reached  the  climax  of  his  poetic  power.  He  was  a  busy, 
practical  worker,  Comptroller  of  the  Customs  in  1374, 
of  the  Petty  Customs  in  1382,  a  member  of  the  Commons 
in  the  Parliament  of  1386.  The  fall  of  the  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster from  power  may  have  deprived  him  of  employment 
for  a  time,  but  from  1389  to  1391  he  was  Clerk  of  the 
Royal  Works,  busy  with  repairs  and  building  at  West- 
minster, Windsor,  and  the  Tower.  His  air  indeed  was 
that  of  a  student  rather  than  of  a  man  of  the  world.  A 
single  portrait  has  preserved  for  us  his  forked  beard,  his 
dark-coloured  dress,  the  knife  and  pen-case  at  his  girdle, 
and  we  may  supplement  this  portrait  by  a  few  vivid 
touches  of  his  own.  The  sly,  elvish  face,  the  quick  walk, 
the  plump  figure  and  portly  waist  were  those  of  a  genial 
and  humorous  man ;  but  men  jested  at  his  silence,  his 


The  Can 
ierbury 
Tales. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  507 

abstraction,  his  love  of  study.      "  Thou  lookest  as  thou  CHAP.  IV. 
wouldest  find  an  hare,"  laughs  the  host,  "  and  ever  on  the    m^hard 
ground  I  see  thee  stare."    He  heard  little  of  his  neighbours'     second, 
talk  when  office  wTork  in  Thames  Street  was  over.     "  Thou     1331- 
goest  home  to  thy  own  house  anon,  and  also  dumb  as  a     1^?P* 
stone  thou  sittest  at  another  book  till  fully  dazed  is  thy 
look,  and  livest  thus  as  an  heremite,  although,"  he  adds 
slyly,  "  thy  abstinence  is  lite,"  or  little.     But  of  this  seem- 
ing abstraction  from  the  world  about  him  there  is  not  a 
trace  in   Chaucer's   verse.     We  see  there  how  keen  his 
observation  was,  how  vivid  and  intense  his  sympathy  with 
nature  and  the  men  among  whom  he  moved.     "  Farewell, 
my  book,"  he  cried  as  spring  came  after  winter  and  the 
lark's  song  roused  him  at  dawn  to  spend  hours  gazing 
alone   on   the  daisy   whose   beauty   he   sang.     But  field 
aftd  stream  and  flower  and  bird,  much  as  he  loved  them, 
were  less  to  him  than  man.     No  poetry  was  ever  more 
human  than  Chaucer's,  none  ever  came  more  frankly  and 
genially  home  to  men  than  his  "  Canterbury  Tales." 

It  was  the  continuation  and  revision  of  this  work  which 
mainly  occupied  him  during  the  years  from  1384  to  1390. 
Its  best  stories,  those  of  the  Miller,  the  Reeve,  the  Cook, 
the  Wife  of  Bath,  the  Merchant,  the  Friar,  the  Nun,  the 
Priest,  and  the  Pardoner,  are  ascribed  to  this  period,  as 
well  as  the  Prologue.  The  framework  which  Chaucer  chose 
— that  of  a  pilgrimage  from  London  to  Canterbury — not 
only  enabled  him  to  string  these  tales  together,  but  lent 
itself  admirably  to  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  his 
poetic  temper,  his  dramatic  versatility  and  the  univer- 
sality of  his  sympathy.  His  tales  cover  the  whole 
field  of  mediaeval  poetry;  the  legend  of  the  priest,  the 
knightly  romance,  the  wonder-tale  of  the  traveller,  the 
broad  humour  of  the  fabliau,  allegory  and  apologue,  all 
are  there.  He  finds  a  yet  wider  scope  for  his  genius  in 
the  persons  who  tell  these  stories,  the  thirty  pilgrims  who 
start  in  the  May  morning  from  the  Tabard  in  Southwark 
— thirty  distinct  figures,  representatives  of  every  class  of 


508 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  IV.  English  society  from  the  noble  to  the  ploughman.  We 
Kichard  see  the  "  verray  perh'ght  gentil  knight "  in  cassock  and 
Second.  coa^  °f  mail,  with  his  curly-headed  squire  beside  him, 
1381-  fresh  as  the  May  morning,  and  behind  them  the  brown- 
i4op.  faced  yeoman  in  his  coat  and  hood  of  green  with  a 
mighty  bow  in  his  hand.  A  group  of  ecclesiastics  light 
up  for  us  the  mediaeval  church — the  brawny  hunt-loving 
monk,  whose  bridle  jingles  as  loud  and  clear  as  the  chapel- 
bell — the  wanton  friar,  first  among  the  beggars  and  harpers 
of  the  country  side — the  poor  parson,  threadbare,  learned, 
and  devout  ("  Christ's  lore  and  his  apostles  twelve  he 
taught,  and  first  he  followed  it  himself") — the  summoner 
with  his  fiery  face— the  pardoner  with  his  wallet  "  bret- 
full  of  pardons,  come  from  Rome  all  hot" — the  lively 
prioress  with  her  courtly  French  lisp,  her  soft  little  red 
mouth,  .and  "  Amor  vincit  omnia  "  graven  on  her  broocfi. 
Learning  is  there  in  the  portly  person  of  the  doctor  of 
physic,  rich  with  the  profits  of  the  pestilence — the  busy 
serjeant-of-law,  "  that  ever  seemed  busier  than  he  was  "— 
the  hollow-cheeked  clerk  of  Oxford  with  his  love  of  books 
and  short  sharp  sentences  thafc  disguise  a  latent  tenderness 
which  breaks  out  at  last  in  the  story  of  Griseldis.  Around 
them  crowd  types  of  English  industry ;  the  merchant ;  the 
franklin  in  whose  house  "  it  snowed  of  meat  and  drink  ; " 
the  sailor  fresh  from  frays  in  the  Channel ;  the  buxom  wife 
of  Bath ;  the  broad-shouldered  miller ;  the  haberdasher, 
carpenter,  weaver,  dyer,  tapestry-maker,  each  in  the 
livery  of  his  craft;  and  last  the  honest  ploughman  who 
would  dyke  and  delve  for  the  poor  without  hire.  It  is  the 
first  time  in  English  poetry  that  we  are  brought  face  to 
face  not  with  characters  or  allegories  or  reminiscences 
of  the  past,  but  with  living  and  breathing  men,  men 
distinct  in  temper  and  sentiment  as  in  face  or  costume 
or  mode  of  speech ;  and  with  this  distinctness  of  each 
maintained  throughout  the  story  by  a  thousand  shades  of 
expression  and  action.  It  is  the  first  time,  too,  that  we 
meet  with  the  dramatic  power  which  not  only  creates  each 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


509 


character  but  combines  it  with  its  fellows,  which  not  only  CHAP.  IV. 
adjusts  each  tale  or  jest  to  the  temper  of  the  person  who    Diehard 
utters  it  but  fuses  all  into  a  poetic  unity.     It  is  life  in  its     second, 
largeness,  its  variety,  its  complexity,  which  surrounds  us     1331- 
in  the  "  Canterbury  Tales."     In  some  of  the  stories  indeed,     1AOO> 
which  were  composed  no  doubt  at  an  earlier  time,  there 
is  the  tedium  of  the  old  romance  or  the  pedantry  of  the 
schoolman ;  but  taken  as  a  whole  the  poem  is  the  work 
not  of  a  man  of  letters  but  of  a  man  of  action.     Chaucer 
has  received  his  training  from  war,  courts,  business,  travel 
— a  training  not  of  books  but  of  life.     And  it  is  life  that 
he  loves — the  delicacy  of  its   sentiment,  the  breadth  of 
its  farce,  its  laughter  and  its  tears,  the  tenderness  of  its 
Griseldis   or  the    Smollett-like  adventures  of  the  miller 
and  the  clerks.      It  is  this  largeness  of  heart,  this  wide 
tolerance,  which  enables  him   to   reflect   man  for  us    as 
none   but  Shakspere   has   ever  reflected  him,  and  to  do 
this  with  a  pathos,  a  shrewd  sense  and  kindly  humour,  a 
freshness  and  joyousness  of  feeling,  that  even  Shakspere 
has  not  surpassed. 

The  last  ten  years  of  Chaucer's  life  saw  a  few  more  tales        The 

added  to  the  Pilgrimage  and  a  few  poems  to  his  work :  but  ,/'r^lc 

.     Mamage. 

his  power  was  lessening,  and  in  1400  he  rested  from  Ins 
labours  in  his  last  home,  a  house  in  the  garden  of  St.  Mary's 
Chapel  at  Westminster.  His  body  rests  within  the  Abbey 
church.  It  was  strange  that  such  a  voice  should  have 
awakened  no  echo  in  the  singers  that  follow,  but  the  first 
burst  of  English  song  died  as  suddenly  in  Chaucer  as  the 
hope  and  glory  of  his  age.  He  died  indeed  at  the  moment 
of  a  revolution  which  was  the  prelude  to  years  of  national 
discord  and  national  suffering.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  grounds  of  his  action,  the  rule  of  Eichard  the  Second 
after  his  assumption  of  power  had  shown  his  capacity  for 
self-restraint.  Parted  by  I  is  own  will  from  the  counsellors 
of  his  youth,  calling  to  his  service  the  Lords  Appellant, 
reconciled  alike  with  the  baronage  and  the  Parliament,  the 
young  King  promised  to  be  among  the  noblest  and  wisest 


510 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 


CHAP.  IV.  rulers   that    England   had   seen.       But   the   violent   and 
Richard    haughty  temper  which  underlay  this  self-command  showed 


the 
Second. 

1381- 
1400. 


itself  from  time  to  time.  The  Earl  of  Arundel  and  his 
brother  the  bishop  stood  in  the  front  rank  of  the  party 
which  had  coerced  Richard  in  his  early  days  ;  their  influ- 
ence was  great  in  the  new  government.  But  a  strife 
between  the  Earl  and  John  of  Gaunt  revived  the  King's 
resentment  at  the  past  action  of  this  house ;  and  at 
the  funeral  of  Anne  of  Bohemia  in  1394  a  fancied  slight 
roused  Richard  to  a  burst  of  passion.  He  struck  the  Earl 
so  violently  that  the  blow  drew  blood.  But  the  quarrel 
was  patched  up,  and  the  reconciliation  was  followed  by 
the  elevation  of  Bishop  Arundel  to  the  vacant  Primacy 
in  1396.  In  the  preceding  year  Richard  had  crossed  to 
Ireland  and  in  a  short  autumn  campaign  reduced  its  native 
chiefs  again  to  submission.  Fears  of  Lollard  disturbances 
soon  recalled  him,  but  these  died  at  the  King's  presence, 
and  Richard  was  able  to  devote  himself  to  the  negotiation 
of  a  marriage  which  was  to  be  the  turning  point  of  his 
reign.  His  policy  throughout  the  recent  years  had  been 
a  policy  of  peace.  It  was  war  which  rendered  the  Crown 
helpless  before  the  Parliament,  and  peace  was  needful  if  the 
work  of  constant  progress  was  not  to  be  undone.  But  the 
short  truces,  renewed  from  time  to  time,  which  he  had  as 
yet  secured  were  insufficient  for  this  purpose,  for  so  long  as 
war  might  break  out  in  the  coming  year  the  King's  hands 
were  tied.  The  impossibility  of  renouncing  the  claim  to 
the  French  crown  indeed  made  a  formal  peace  impossible, 
but  its  ends  might  be  secured  by  a  lengthened  truce,  and  it 
was  with  a  view  to  this  that  Richard  in  1396  wedded 
Isabella,  the  daughter  of  Charles  the  Sixth  of  France. 
The  bride  was  a  mere  child,  but  she  brought  with  her  a 
renewal  of  the  truce  for  eight  and-twenty-years. 
Change  of  The  match  was  hardly  concluded  when  the  veil  under 
Richard's  which  Richard  had  shrouded  his  real  temper  began  to  be 
temper.  dr0ppeci  His  craving  for  absolute  power,  such  as  he 
witnessed  in  the  Court  of  France,  was  probably  intensified 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


511 


1381 

1400. 


from  this  moment  by  a  mental  disturbance  which  gathered  CHAP.  IV. 
strength  as  the  months  went  on.     As  if  to  preclude  any     Bichard 
revival  of  the  war  Kichard  had  surrendered  Cherbourg  to     second, 
the  King  of  Navarre  and  now  gave  back  Brest  to  the  Duke 
of  Britanny.     He  was  said  to  have  pledged  himself  at  his 
wedding  to  restore  Calais  to  the  King  of  France.      But 
once  freed  from  all  danger  of  such  a  struggle  the  whole 

o  oo 

character  of  his  rule  seemed  to  change.  His  court  became 
as  crowded  and  profuse  as  his  grandfather's.  Money  was 
recklessly  borrowed  and  as  recklessly  squandered.  The 
King's  pride  became  insane,  and  it  was  fed  with  dreams  of 
winning  the  Imperial  crown  through  the  deposition  of 
Wenzel  of  Bohemia.  The  councillors  with  whom  he  had 
acted  since  his  resumption  of  authority  saw  themselves 
powerless.  John  of  Gaunt  indeed  still  retained  influence 
over  the  King.  It  was  the  support  of  the  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster after  his  return  from  his  Spanish  campaign  which 
had  enabled  Eichard  to  hold  in  check  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester  and  the  party  that  he  led;  and  the  anxiety 
of  the  young  King  to  retain  this  support  was  seen  in  his 
grant  of  Aquitame  to  his  uncle,  and  in  the  legitimation 
of  the  Beauforts,  John's  children  by  a  mistress,  Catherine 
Swinford,  whom  he  married  after  the  death  of  his  second 
wife.  The  friendship  of  the  Duke  brought  with  it  the 
adhesion  of  one  even  more  important,  his  son  Henry,  the 
Earl  of  Derby.  As  heir  through  his  mother,  Blanche  of 
Lancaster,  to  the  estates  and  influence  of  the  Lancastrian 
house,  Henry  was  the  natural  head  of  a  constitutional 
opposition,  and  his  weight  was  increased  by  a  marriage 
with  the  heiress  of  the  house  of  Bohun.  He  had  taken  a 
prominent  part  in  the  overthrow  of  Suffolk  and  De  Vere, 
and  on  the  King's  resumption  of  power  he  had  prudently 
withdrawn  from  the  realm  on  a  vow  of  Crusade,  had 
touched  at  Barbary,  visited  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  in 
1390  sailed  for  Dantzig  and  taken  part  in  a  campaign 
against  the  heathen  Prussians  with  the  Teutonic  Knights. 
Since  his  return  he  had  silently  followed  in  his  father's 


512 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1381 
1400. 

Richard's 
tyranny. 


CHAP.  IV.  track.  But  the  counsels  of  John  of  Gaunt  were  hardly 
Kichard  wiser  than  of  old  ;  Arundel  had  already  denounced  his 
Second  influence  as  a  hurtful  one  ;  and  in  the  events  which  were 
now  to  hurry  quickly  on  he  seems  to  have  gone  hand  in 
hand  with  the  King. 

A  new  uneasiness  was  seen  in  the  Parliament  of  1397, 
and  the  Commons  prayed  for  a  redress  of  the  profusion  of 
the  Court.  Richard  at  once  seized  on  the  opportunity  for 
a  struggle.  He  declared  himself  grieved  that  his  subjects 
should  "  take  on  themselves  any  ordinance  or  governance 
of  the  person  of  the  King  or  his  hostel  or  of  any  persons 
of  estate  whom  he  might  be  pleased  to  have  in  his  com- 
pany." The  Commons  were  at  once  overawed ;  they  owned 
that  the  cognizance  of  such  matters  belonged  wholly  to  the 
King,  and  gave  up  to  the  Duke  of  Lancaster  the  name  of 
the  member,  Sir  Thomas  Haxey,  who  had  brought  forward 
this  article  of  their  prayer.  The  lords  pronounced  him  a 
traitor,  and  his  life  \vas  only  saved  by  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
clergyman  and  by  the  interposition  of  Archbishop  Arundel. 
The  Earl  of  Arundel  and  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  at  once 
withdrew  from  Court.  They  stood  almost  alone,  for  of  the 
royal  house  the  Dukes  of  Lancaster  and  York  with  their 
sons  the  Earls  of  Derby  and  Rutland  were  now  with  the 
King,  and  the  old  coadjutor  of  Gloucester,  the  Earl  of 
Nottingham,  was  in  high  favour  with  him.  The  Earl  of 
Warwick  alone  joined  them,  and  he  was  included  in  a 
charge  of  conspiracy  which  was  followed  by  the  arrest  of 
the  three.  A  fresh  Parliament  in  September  was  packed 
with  royal  partizans,  and  Richard  moved  boldly  to  his 
end.  The  pardons  of  the  Lords  Appellant  were  revoked. 
Archbishop  Arundel  was  impeached  and  banished  from 
the  realm,  he  was  transferred  by  the  Pope  to  the  See  of 
St.  Andrew's,  and  the  Primacy  given  to  Roger  Walden. 
The  Earl  of  Arundel,  accused  before  the  Peers  under  John 
of  Gaunt  as  High  Steward,  was  condemned  and  executed 
in  a  single  day.  Warwick,  who  owned  the  truth  of  the 
charge,  was  condemned  to  perpetual  imprisonment  The 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  513 

Duke  of  Gloucester  was  saved  from  a  trial  by  a  sudden  CHAP.  IV. 
death   in   his   prison   at   Calais.     A   new   Parliament   at     ifohiwd 
Shrewsbury  in  the  opening  of  1398  completed  the  King's     second 
work.      In  three   days  it  declared   null  the   proceedings     1331- 
of  the  Parliament  of  1388,  granted  to  the  King  a  subsidy     14O°- 
on  wool  and  leather  for  his  life,  and  delegated  its  authority 
to  a  standing  committee  of  eighteen  members  from  both 
Houses  with  power  to  continue  their  sittings  even  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  Parliament  and  to  "  examine  and  deter- 
mine all  matters  and  subjects  which  had  been  moved  in  the 
presence  of  the  King  with  all  the  dependencies  thereof." 

In  a  single  year  the  whole  colour  of  Eichard's  govern-  Henry  of 
ment  had  changed.  He  had  revenged  himself  on  the  men  n 
who  had  once  held  him  down,  and  his  revenge  was  hardly 
taken  before  he  disclosed  a  plan  of  absolute  government. 
He  had  used  the  Parliament  to  strike  down  the  Primate 
as  well  as  the  greatest  nobles  of  the  realm  and  to  give 
him  a  revenue  for  life  which  enabled  him  to  get  rid  of 
Parliament  itself,  for  the  Permanent  Committee  which  it 
named  were  men  devoted,  as  Eichard  held,  to  his  cause. 
John  of  Gaunt  was  at  its  head,  and  the  rest  of  its  lords 
were  those  who  had  backed  the  King  in  his  blow  at 
Gloucester  and  the  Arundels.  Two  however  were  ex- 
cluded. In  the  general  distribution  of  rewards  which 
followed  Gloucester's  overthrow  the  Earl  of  Derby  had 
been  made  Duke  of  Hereford,  the  Earl  of  Nottingham 
Duke  of  Norfolk.  But  at  the  close  of  1397  the  two 
Dukes  charged  each  other  with  treasonable  talk  as  they 
rode  between  Brentford  and  London,  and  the  Permanent 
Committee  ordered  the  matter  to  be  settled  by  a  single 
combat.  In  September  1398  the  Dukes  entered  the 
lists ;  but  Eichard  forbade  the  duel,  sentenced  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk  to  banishment  for  life,  and  Henry  of  Lancaster 
to  exile  for  six  years.  As  Henry  left  London  the  streets 
were  crowded  with  people  weeping  for  his  fate  ;  some  fol- 
lowed him  even  to  the  coast.  But  his  withdrawal  removed 
the  last  check  on  Eichard's  despotism.  He  forced  from 


514 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


Bichard 

the 
Second. 

1381- 
14OO. 


every  tenant  of  the  Crown  an  oath  to  recognize  the  acts  of 
his  Committee  as  valid,  and  to  oppose  any  attempts  to 
alter  or  revoke  them.  Forced  loans,  the  sale  of  charters 
of  pardon  to  Gloucester's  adherents,  the  outlawry  of  seven 
counties  at  once  on  the  plea  that  they  had  supported 
his  enemies  and  must  purchase  pardon,  a  reckless  interfer- 
ence with  the  course  of  justice,  roused  into  new  life  the 
old  discontent.  Even  this  might  have  been  defied  had 
not  Richard  set  an  able  and  unscrupulous  leader  at  its 
head.  Leave  had  been  given  to  Henry  of  Lancaster  to 
receive  his  father's  inheritance  on  the  death  of  John  of 
Gaunt,  in  February  1399.  But  an  ordinance  of  the 
Continual  Committee  annulled  this  permission  and  Richard 
seized  the  Lancastrian  estates.  Archbishop  Arundel  at  once 
saw  the  chance  of  dealing  blow  for  blow.  He  hastened 
to  Paris  and  pressed  the  Duke  to  return  to  England, 
telling  him  how  all  men  there  looked  for  it,  "  especially 
the  Londoners,  who  loved  him  a  hundred  times  more  than 
they  did  the  King."  For  a  while  Henry  remained  buried 
in  thought,  "  leaning  on  a  window  overlooking  a  garden  ; " 
but  Arundel's  pressure  at  lash  prevailed,  he  made  his  way 
secretly  to  Britanny,  and  with  fifteen  knights  set  sail 
from  Vannes. 

What  had  really  decided  him  was  the  opportunity 
offered  by  Richard's  absence  from  the  realm.  From 
the  opening  of  his  reign  the  King's  attention  had  been 
constantly  drawn  to  his  dependent  lordship  of  Ireland. 
More  than  two  hundred  years  had  passed  away  since 
the  troubles  which  followed  the  murder  of  Archbishop 
Thomas  forced  Henry  the  Second  to  leave  his  work  of 
conquest  unfinished,  and  the  opportunity  for  a  complete 
reduction  of  the  island  which  had  been  lost  then  had 
never  returned.  When  Henry  quitted  Ireland  indeed 
Leinster  was  wholly  in  English  hands,  Connaught  bowed 
to  a  nominal  acknowledgement  of  the  English  over- 
lordship,  and  for  a  while  the  work  of  conquest  seemed 
to  go  steadily  on.  John,  de  Courcy  penetrated  into 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  515 

Ulster  and  established  himself  at  Down-Patrick  ;  and  CHAP.  IV. 
Henry  planned  the  establishment  of  his  youngest  son,  Bichard 
John,  as  Lord  of  Ireland.  But  the  levity  of  the  young  Second 
prince,  who  mocked  the  rude  dresses  of  the  native  i3si_ 
chieftains  and  plucked  them  in  insult  by  the  beard,  14OO» 
soon  forced  his  father  to  recall  him;  and  in  the  conti- 
nental struggle  which  soon  opened  on  the  Angevin  kings 
as  in  the  constitutional  struggle  within  England  itself 
which  followed  it  all  serious  purpose  of  completing  the 
conquest  of  Ireland  was  forgotten.  Xothing  indeed  but 
the  feuds  and  weakness  of  the  Irish  tribes  enabled  the 
adventurers  to  hold  the  districts  of  Drogheda,  Dublin,  Wex- 
ford,  Waterford,  and  Cork,  which  formed  what  was  thence- 
forth known  as  "  the  English  Pale."  In  all  _  the  history  of 
Ireland  no  event  has  proved  more  disastrous  than  this 
half-finished  conquest.  Had  the  Irish  driven  their  in- 
vaders into  the  sea,  or  the  English  succeeded  in  the 
complete  reduction  of  the  island,  the  misery  of  its  after 
ages  might  have  been  avoided.  A  straggle  such  as  that 
in  which  Scotland  drove  out  its  conquerors  might  have 
produced  a  spirit  of  patriotism  and  national  union  which 
would  have  formed  a  people  out  of  the  mass  of  warring 
clans.  A  conquest  such  as  that  in  which  the  Normans 
made  England  their  own  would  have  spread  at  any  rate 
the  law,  the  order,  the  civilization  of  the  conquering 
country  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  conquered. 
Unhappily  Ireland,  while  powerless  to  effect  its  entire 
deliverance,  was  strong  enough  to  hold  its  assailants 
partially  at  bay.  The  country  was  broken  into  two 
halves  whose  conflict  has  never  ceased.  So  far  from 
either  giving  elements  of  civilization  or  good  government 
to  the  other,  conqueror  and  conquered  reaped  only  degra- 
dation from  the  ceaseless  conflict.  The  native  tribes  lost 
whatever  tendency  to  union  or  social  progress  had  sur- 
vived the  invasion  of  the  Danes.  Their  barbarism  was 
intensified  by  their  hatred  of  the  more  civilized  intruders. 
But  these  intruders  themselves,  penned  within  the  narrow 


516  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  IV.  limits  of  the  Pale,  brutalized  by  a  merciless  conflict,  cut 
Bichard  °^  ^rorn  contact  with  the  refining  influences  of  a  larger 
Second  world,  sank  rapidly  to  the  level  of  the  barbarism  about 
laisi-  them  :  and  the  lawlessness,  the  ferocity,  the  narrowness  of 
14OO.  feudalism  broke  out  unchecked  in  this  horde  of  adventurers 

who  held  the  land  by  their  sword. 

English        From  the  first  the  story  of  the  English  Pale  was  a  story 
and  Irish.  Of  degradation  and  anarchy.      It  needed  the  stern   ven- 
geance of  John,  whose  army  stormed  its  strongholds  and 
drove  its  leading  barons  into  exile,  to  preserve  even  their 
fealty  to  the  English  Crown.     John  divided  the  Pale  into 
counties  and  ordered  the  observance  of  the  English  law ; 
but  the  departure  of  his  army  was  the  signal  for  a  return 
of  the  disorder  he  had  trampled  under    foot.     Between 
Englishmen  and  Irishmen  went  on  a  ceaseless  and  pitiless 
war.     Every  Irishman  without  the  Pale  was  counted  by 
the  English  settlers  an  enemy  and  a  robber  whose  murder 
found  no  cognizance  or  punishment  at  the  hands  of  the 
law.      Half  the  subsistence  of  the   English   barons    was 
drawn  from  forays  across  the  border,  and  these  forays  were 
avenged  by  incursions  of  native  marauders  which  carried 
havoc  at  times   to  the  very  walls   of  Dublin.      Within 
the  Pale  itself  the  misery  was  hardly  less.     The  English 
settlers  were  harried  and  oppressed  by  their  own  baronage 
as  much  as  by  the  Irish  marauders,  while  the  feuds  of 
the  English  lords  wasted  their  strength  and  prevented  any 
effective  combination    either    for    common    conquest  or 
common  defence.     So  utter  seemed  their  weakness  that 
Robert  Bruce  saw  in  it  an  opportunity  for  a  counter-blow 
at  his  English  assailants,  and  his  victory  at  Bannockburn 
was  followed  up  by  the  despatch  of  a   Scotch  force   to 
Ireland  with  his  brother  Edward  at  its  head.     A  general 
rising  of  the  Irish  welcomed  this  deliverer ;  but  the  danger 
drove  the  barons  of  the  Pale  to  a  momentary  union,  and 
in  1316  their  valour  was  proved  on  the  bloody  field  of 
Athenree  by  the  slaughter  of  eleven  thousand  of  their  foes 
and  the  almost  complete  annihilation  of  the  sept  of  the 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


517 


the 

Second. 


1381- 
14OO. 


Richard 

in 
Ireland. 


O'Connors.  But  with  victory  returned  the  old  anarchy  CHAP.  IV. 
and  degradation.  The  barons  of  the  Pale  sank  more  and  Eichard 
more  into  Irish  chieftains.  The  Fitz-Maurices,  who  be- 
came Earls  of  Desmond  and  whose  vast  territory  in 
Munster  was  erected  into  a  County  Palatine,  adopted  the 
dress  and  manners  of  the  natives  around  them.  The  rapid 
growth  of  this  evil  was  seen  m  the  ruthless  provisions  by 
which  Edward  the  Third  strove  to  check  it  in  his  Statute 
of  Kilkenny.  The  Statute  forbade  the  adoption  of  the 
Irish  language  or  name  or  dress  by  any  man  of  English 
blood:  it  enforced  within  the  Pale  the  exclusive  use  of 
English  law,  and  made  the  use  of  the  native  or  Brehon 
law,  which  was  gaining  ground,  an  act  of  treason  ;  it  made 
treasonable  any  marriage  of  the  Englishry  with  persons  of 
Irish  race,  or  any  adoption  of  English  children  by  Irish 
foster-fathers. 

But  stern  as  they  were  these  provisions  proved  fruitless 
to  check  the  fusion  of  the  two  races,  while  the  growing 
independence  of  the  Lords  of  the  Pale  threw  off  all  but 
the  semblance  of  obedience  to  the  English  government.  It 
was  this  which  stirred  Eichard  to  a  serious  effort  for  the 
conquest  and  organization  of  the  island.  In  1386  he 
granted  the  "  entire  dominion  "  of  Ireland  with  the  title  of 
its  Duke  to  Eobert  de  Vere  on  condition  of  his  carrying  out 
its  utter  reduction.  But  the  troubles  of  the  reign  soon 
recalled  De  Vere,  and  it  was  not  till  the  truce  with  France 
had  freed  his  hands  that  the  King  again  took  up  his 
projects  of  conquest.  In  1394  he  landed  with  an  army 
at  Waterford,  and  received  the  general  submission  of  the 
native  chieftains.  But  the  Lords  of  the  Pale  held  sullenly 
aloof;  and  Eichard  had  no  sooner  quitted  the  island 
than  the  Irish  in  turn  refused  to  carry  out  their  pro- 
mise of  quitting  Leinster,  and  engaged  in  a  fresh 
contest  with  the  Earl  of  March,  whom  the  King  had 
proclaimed  as  his  heir  and  left  behind  him  as  his 
lieutenant  in  Ireland.  In  the  summer  of  1398  March 
was  beaten  and  slain  in  battle :  and  Eichard  resolved  to 

VOL.  L— 34 


518 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1381 
1400. 


Landing 
of  Henry 


CHAP.  IV.  avenge  his  cousin's  death  and  complete  the  work  he  had 
Richard  begun  by  a  fresh  invasion.  He  felt  no  apprehension  of 
Second,  danger.  At  home  his  triumph  seemed  complete.  The 
death  of  Norfolk,  the  exile  of  Henry  of  Lancaster,  left 
the  baronage  without  heads  for  any  rising.  He  ensured,  as 
he  believed,  the  loyalty  of  the  great  houses  by  the  host- 
ages of  their  blood  whom  he  carried  with  him,  at  whose 
head  was  Henry  of  Lancaster's  son,  the  future  Henry  the 
Fifth.  The  refusal  of  the  Percies,  the  Earl  of  Northum- 
berland and  his  sou  Henry  Percy  or  Hotspur,  to  obey 
his  summons  might  have  warned  him  that  danger  was 
brewing  in  the  north.  Richard  however  took  little 
heed.  He  banished  the  Percies,  who  withdrew  into  Scot- 
and ;  and  sailed  for  Ireland  at  the  end  of  May,  leaving 
his  uncle  the  Duke  of  York  regent  in  his  stead. 

The  opening  of  his  campaign  was  indecisive,  and  it 
was  not  till  fresh  reinforcements  arrived  at  Dublin  that 
the  King  could  prepare  for  a  march  into  the  heart  of  the 
island.  But  while  he  planned  the  conquest  of  Ireland 
the  news  came  that  England  was  lost.  Little  more  than 
a  month  had  passed  after  his  departure  when  Henry  of 
Lancaster  entered  the  Humber  and  landed  at  Ravenspnr. 
He  came,  he  said,  to  claim  his  heritage  ;  and  three  of  his 
Yorkshire  castles  at  once  threw  open  their  gates.  The 
two  great  houses  of  the  north  joined  him  at  once.  Ralph 
Neville,  the  Earl  of  Westmoreland,  had  married  his  half- 
sister  ;  the  Percies  came  from  their  exile  over  the  Scottish 
border.  As  he  pushed  quickly  to  the  south  all  resistance 
broke  down.  The  army  which  the  Regent  gathered  refused 
to  do  hurt  to  the  Duke ;  London  called  him  to  her  gates  ; 
and  the  royal  Council  could  only  march  hastily  on  Bristol 
in  the  hope  of  securing  that  port  for  the  King's  return.  But 
the  town  at  once  yielded  to  Henry's  summons,  the  Regent 
submitted  to  him,  and  with  an  army  which  grew  at  every 
step  the  Duke  marched  upon  Cheshire,  where  Richard's 
adherents  were  gathering  in  arms  to  meet  the  King. 
Contrary  winds  had  for  a  while  kept  Richard  ignorant 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  519 

of  his  cousin's  progress,  and  even  when  the  news  reached  CHAP.  IV. 
him  he  was  in  a  web  of  treachery.   The  Duke  of  Albemarle,     Bi^rd 

the  son  of  the  Regent  Duke  of  York,  was  beside  him,  and     c  the  ^ 
.  t  Second, 

at  his  persuasion  the  King  abandoned  his  first  purpose  of     j^^ 

returning  at  once,  and  sent  the  Earl  of  Salisbury  to  14O°- 
Con  way  while  he  himself  waited  to  gather  his  army 
and  fleet.  The  six  days  he  proposed  to  gather  them 
in  became  sixteen,  and  the  delay  proved  fatal  to  his  cause. 
As  no  news  came  of  Eichard  the  Welshmen  who  flocked 
to  Salisbury's  camp  dispersed  on  Henry's  advance  to 
Chester.  Henry  was  in  fact  master  of  the  realm  at  tho 
opening  of  August  when  Eichard  at  last  sailed  from 
Waterford  and  landed  at  Milford  Haven. 

Every  road  was  blocked,  and  the  news  that  all  was  lost  Richards 
told  on  the  thirty  thousand  men  he  brought  with  him.  In  caPtur€- 
a  single  day  but  six  thousand  remained,  and  even  these  dis- 
persed when  it  was  found  that  the  King  had  ridden  off 
disguised  as  a  friar  to  join  the  force  which  he  believed 
to  be  awaiting  him  in  North  Wales  with  Salisbury  at  its 
head.  He  reached  Caernarvon  only  to  find  this  force 
already  disbanded,  and  throwing  himself  into  the  castle 
despatched  his  kinsmen,  the  Dukes  of  Exeter  and 
Surrey,  to  Chester  to  negotiate  with  Henry  of  Lan- 
caster. But  they  were  detained  there  while  the  Earl 
of  Northumberland  pushed  forward  with  a  picked  body 
of  men,  and  securing  the  castles  of  the  coast  at  last 
sought  an  interview  with  Eichard  at  Conway.  The 
King's  confidence  was  still  unbroken.  He  threatened  to 
raise  a  force  of  Welshmen  and  to  put  Lancaster  to  death. 
Deserted  as  he  was  indeed,  a  King  was  in  himself  a  power, 
and  only  the  treacherous  pledges  of  the  Earl  induced  him 
to  set  aside  his  plans  for  a  reconciliation  to  be  brought 
about  in  Parliament  and  to  move  from  Conway  on  the 
promise  of  a  conference  with  Henry  at  Flint.  But  he  had 
no  sooner  reached  the  town  than  he  found  himself  sur- 
rounded by  Lancaster's  forces.  "  I  am  betrayed,"  he  cried, 
as  the  view  of  his  enemies  burst  on  him  from  the  hill; 


520 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.    [BOOK  iv. 


1381- 
1400. 


CHAP.  IV.  "  there  are  pennons  and  banners  in  the  valley."  But  it 
Richard  was  *°°  ^a^e  ^or  retreat.  Richard  was  seized  and  brought 
Second  before  his  cousin.  "  I  am  come  before  iny  time,"  said 
Lancaster,  "  but  I  will  show  you  the  reason.  Your  people, 
my  lord,  complain  that  for  the  space  of  twenty  years  you 
have  ruled  them  harshly :  however,  if  it  please  God,  I  will 
help  you  to  rule  them  better."  "  Fair  cousin,"  replied  the 
King,  "  since  it  pleases  you,  it  pleases  me  well."  Then, 
breaking  in  private  into  passionate  regrets  that  he  had 
ever  spared  his  cousin's  life,  he  suffered  himself  to  be 
carried  a  prisoner  along  the  road  to  London. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  LANCASTER. 
1399—1422. 

ONCE  safe  in  the  Tower,  it  was  easy  to  wrest  from  Richard  Henry  the 
a  resignation  of  his  crown;  and  this  resignation  was 
solemnly  accepted  by  the  Parliament  which  met  at  the  close 
of  September  1399.  But  the  resignation  was  confirmed 
by  a  solemn  Act  of  Deposition.  The  coronation  oath  was 
read,  and  a  long  impeachment  which  stated  the  breach 
of  the  promises  made  in  it  was  followed  by  a  solemn  vote 
of  both  Houses  which  removed  Richard  from  the  state  and 
authority  of  King.  According  to  the  strict  rules  of  here- 
ditary descent  as  construed  by  the  feudal  lawyers  by  an 
assumed  analogy  with  the  rules  which  governed  descent  of 
ordinary  estates  the  crown  would  now  have  passed  to  a 
house  which  had  at  an  earlier  period  played  a  leading 
part  in  the  revolutions  of  the  Edwards.  The  great-grandson 
of  the  Mortimer  who  brought  about  the  deposition  of 
Edward  the  Second  had  married  the  daughter  and  heiress 
of  Lionel  of  Clarence,  the  third  son  of  Edward  the  Third. 
The  childlessness  of  Richard  and  the  death  of  Edward's 
second  son  without  issue  placed  Edmund  Mortimer,  the 
son  of  the  Earl  who  had  fallen  in  Ireland,  first  among 
the  claimants  of  the  crown ;  but  he  was  now  a  child  of  six 
years  old,  the  strict  rule  of  hereditary  descent  had  never 
received  any  formal  recognition  in  the  case  of  the  Crown, 
and  precedent  suggested  a  right  of  Parliament  to  choose 
in  such  a  case  a  successor  among  any  other  members  of 


522  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  V.  the  Koyal  House.  Only  one  such  successor  was  in  fact 
Xhe  possible.  Eising  from  his  seat  and  crossing  himself, 

Lancaster  Henry  of  Lancaster  solemnly  challenged  the  crown,  "as 
1399-  that  I  am  descended  by  right  line  of  blood  coming  from 
1422.  ^g  g00d  lord  King  Henry  the  Third,  and  through  that 
right  that  God  of  his  grace  hath  sent  me  with  help  of  my 
kin  and  of  my  friends  to  recover  it :  the  which  realm  was 
in  point  to  be  undone  by  default  of  governance  and 
undoing  of  good  laws."  Whatever  defects  such  a  claim 
might  present  were  more  than  covered  by  the  solemn 
recognition  of  Parliament.  The  two  Archbishops,  taking 
the  new  sovereign  by  the  hand,  seated  him  upon  the 
throne,  and  Henry  in  emphatic  words  ratified  the  compact 
between  himself  and  his  people.  "  Sirs,"  he  said  to  the 
prelates,  lords,  knights,  and  burgesses  gathered  round  him, 
"  I  thank  God  and  you,  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  all 
estates  of  the  land;  and  do  you  to  wit  it  is  not  my 
will  that  any  man  think  that  by  way  of  conquest  I 
would  disinherit  any  of  his  heritage,  franchises,  or  other 
rights  that  he  ought  to  have,  nor  put  him  out  of  the 
good  that  he  has  and  has  had  by  the  good  laws  and 
customs  of  the  realm,  except  those  persons  that  have 
been  against  the  good  purpose  and  the  common  profit 
of  the  realm." 

Statute  of      The    deposition   of  a  king,   the   setting  aside  of  one 

Heresy,  claimant  and  the  elevation  of  another  to  the  throne, 
marked  the  triumph  of  the  English  Parliament  over  the 
monarchy.  The  struggle  of  the  Edwards  against  its 
gradual  advance  had  culminated  in  the  bold  effort  of 
Eichard  the  Second  to  supersede  it  by  a  commission 
dependent  on  the  Crown.  But  the  House  of  Lancaster 
was  precluded  by  its  very  position  from  any  renewal 
of  the  struggle.  It  was  not  merely  that  the  exhaustion 
of  the  treasury  by  the  war  and  revolt  which  followed 
Henry's  accession  left  him  even  more  than  the  kings 
who  had  gone  before  in  the  hands  of  the  Estates;  it 
was  that  his  very  right  to  the  Crown  lay  in  an  acknow- 


iv.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  523 

lodgement  of  tlieir  highest  pretensions.  He  had  been  CHAP.  V. 
raised  to  the  throne  by  a  Parliamentary  revolution.  His  ^ 
claim  to  obedience  had  throughout  to  rest  on  a  Parlia-  Lancaster 
mentary  title.  During  no  period  of  our  early  history  1399- 
therefore  were  the  powers  of  the  two  Houses  so  frankly  x^??* 
recognized.  The  tone  of  Henry  the  Fourth  till  the  very 
close  of  his  reign  is  that  of  humble  compliance  in  all  but 
ecclesiastical  matters  with  the  prayers  of  the  Parliament, 
and  even  his  imperious  successor  shrank  almost  with 
timidity  from  any  conflict  with  it.  But  the  Crown  had 
been  bought  by  pledges  less  noble  than  this.  Arundel 
was  not  only  the  representative  of  constitutional  rule  ;  he 
was  also  the  representative  of  religious  persecution.  No 
prelate  had  been  so  bitter  a  foe  of  the  Lollards,  and  the 
support  which  the  Churcli  had  given  to  the  recent 
revolution  had  no  doubt  sprung  from  its  belief  that  a 
sovereign  whom  Arundel  placed  on  the  throne  would  deal 
pitilessly  with  the  growing  heresy.  The  expectations  of 
the  clergy  were  soon  realized.  In  the  first  Convocation  of 
his  reign  Henry  declared  himself  the  protector  of  the 
Church  and  ordered  the  prelates  to  take  measures  for  the 
suppression  of  heresy  and  of  the  wandering  preachers. 
His  declaration  was  but  a  prelude  to  the  Statute  of 
Heresy  which  was  passed  at  the  opening  of  1401.  By 
the  provisions  of  this  infamous  Act  the  hindrances  which 
had  till  now  neutralized  the  efforts  of  the  bishops  to 
enforce  the  common  law  were  utterly  taken  away.  Not 
only  were  they  permitted  to  arrest  all  preachers  of  heresy, 
all  schoolmasters  infected  with  heretical  teaching,  all 
owners  and  writers  of  heretical  books,  and  to  imprison 
them  even  if  they  recanted  at  the  King's  pleasure,  but  a 
refusal  to  abjure  or  a  relapse  after  abjuration  enabled  them 
to  hand  over  the  heretic  to  the  civil  officers,  and  by  these 
— so  ran  the  first  legal  enactment  of  religious  bloodshed 
which  defiled  our  Statute-book — he  was  to  be  burned  on 
a  high  place  before  the  people.  The  statute  was  hardly 
passed  when  William  Sautre  became  its  first  victim. 


524 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  V. 


1399 
1422. 


England 

and 
France. 


Sautre,  while  a  parish  priest  at  Lynn,  had  been  cited 
before  the  Bishop  of  Norwich  two  years  before  for  heresy 
and  forced  to  recant.  But  he  still  continued  to  preach 
against  the  worship  of  images,  against  pilgrimages,  and 
against  traiisubstantiation  till  the  Statute  of  Heresy 
strengthened  Arundel's  hands.  In  February,  1401,  Sautre 
was  brought  before  the  Primate  as  a  relapsed  heretic,  and 
on  refusing  to  recant  a  second  time  was  degraded  from  hia 
orders.  He  was  handed  to  the  secular  power,  and  on  the 
issue  of  a  royal  writ  publicly  burned. 

The  support  of  the  nobles  had  been  partly  won  by  a 
hope  hardly  less  fatal  to  the  peace  of  the  realm,  the  hope 
of  a  renewal  of  the  strife  with  France.  The  peace  of 
Richard's  later  years  had  sprung  not  merely  from  the  policy 
of  the  English  King,  but  from  the  madness  of  Charles 
the  Sixth  of  France.  France  fell  into  the  hands  of  its 
king's  uncle,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  as  the  Duke  was 
ruler  of  Flanders  and  peace  with  England  was  a  necessity 
for  Flemish  industry,  his  policy  went  hand  in  hand  with 
that  of  Eichard.  His  rival,  the  King's  brother,  Lewis, 
Duke  of  Orleans,  was  the  head  of  the  French  war-party ; 
and  it  was  with  the  view  of  bringing  about  war  that  he 
supported  Henry  of  Lancaster  in  his  exile  at  the  French 
court.  Burgundy  on  the  other  hand  listened  to  Eichard's 
denunciation  of  Henry  as  a  traitor,  and  strove  to  prevent 
his  departure.  But  his  efforts  were  in  vain,  and  he  had  to 
witness  a  revolution  which  hurled  Eichard  from  the  throne, 
deprived  Isabella  of  her  crown,  and  restored  to  power  the 
baronial  party  of  which  Gloucester,  the  advocate  of  war, 
had  long  been  the  head.  The  dread  of  war  was  increased 
by  a  pledge  which  Henry  was  said  to  have  given  at  his 
coronation  that  he  would  not  only  head  an  army  in  its 
march  into  France  but  that  he  would  march  further  into 
France  than  ever  his  grandfather  had  done.  The  French 
Court  retorted  by  refusing  to  acknowledge  Henry  as  King, 
while  the  truce  concluded  with  Eichard  came  at  his 
death  legally  to  an  end.  In  spite  of  this  defiance  however 


iv.j  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  525 

Burgundy  remained  true  to  the  interests  of  Flanders,  and   CHAP.  V. 
Henry  clung  to  a  truce  which  gave  him  time  to  estab-        T^ 
lish  his  throne.     But  the  influence  of  the  baronial  party  j^ncaster 
in  England  made  peace  hard  to  keep ;  the  Duke  of  Orleans     1399- 
urged  on   France  to   war ;    and    the    hatred  of  the   two     14aa' 
peoples  broke  through  the  policy  of  the  two  governments. 
Count  Waleran    of  St.    Pol,  who  had  married  Eichard's 
half-sister,  put  out  to  sea  with  a  fleet  which  swept   the 
east    coast    and    entered     the    Channel.      Pirates    from 
Britanny  and  Navarre  soon  swarmed  in  the  narrow  seas, 
and  their  ravages  were  paid  back  by  those  of  pirates  from 
the  Cinque  Ports.     A  more  formidable  trouble  broke  out 
in  the  north.     The  enmity  of  France  roused  as  of  old  the 
enmity  of  Scotland;   the   Scotch  King  Eobert  the  Third 
refused    to    acknowledge  Henry,  and  Scotch   freebooters 
cruized  along  the  northern  coast. 

Attack  from  without  woke  attack  from  within  the  Richardt 
realm.  Henry  had  shown  little  taste  for  bloodshed  deat'1' 
in  his  conduct  of  the  revolution.  Save  those  of  the 
royal  councillors  whom  he  found  at  Bristol  no  one  had 
been  put  to  death.  Though  a  deputation  of  lords  with 
Archbishop  Arundel  at  its  head  pressed  him  to  take 
Eichard's  life,  he  steadily  refused,  and  kept  him  a  prisoner 
at  Pomfret.  The  judgements  against  Gloucester,  Warwick, 
and  Arundel  were  reversed,  but  the  lords  who  had  appealed 
the  Duke  were  only  punished  by  the  loss  of  the  dignities 
which  they  had  received  as  their  reward.  Eichard's  brother 
and  nephew  by  the  half-blood,  the  Dukes  of  Surrey  and 
Exeter,  became  again  Earls  of  Kent  and  Huntingdon. 
York's  son,  the  Duke  of  Albemarle,  sank  once  more  into 
Earl  of  Eutland.  Beaufort,  Earl  of  Somerset,  lost  his 
new  Marquisate  of  Dorset ;  Spenser  lost  his  Earldom  of 
Gloucester.  But  in  spite  of  a  stormy  scene  among  the 
lords  in  Parliament  Henry  refused  to  exact  further  punish- 
ment; and  his  real  temper  was  seen  in  a  statute  which 
forbade  all  such  appeals  and  left  treason  to  be  dealt  with 
by  ordinary  process  of  law.  But  the  times  were  too  rough 


526  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  V.  for  mercy  such  as  this.  Clouds  no  sooner  gathered  round 
^  the  new  King  than  the  degraded  lords  leagued  with  the 
Lancaster.  Earl  °^  Salisbury  and  the  deposed  Bishop  of  Carlisle  to 
1399-  release  Eichard  and  to  murder  Henry.  Betrayed  by  Eut- 
1422.  jan(j  ju  the  spring  of  1401,  and  threatened  by  the  King's 
march  from  London,  they  fled  to  Cirencester  ;  but  the  town 
was  against  them,  its  burghers  killed  Kent  and  Salisbury, 
and  drove  out  the  rest.  A  terrible  retribution  followed. 
Lord  Spenser  and  the  Earl  of  Huntingdon  were  taken  and 
summarily  beheaded ;  thirty  more  conspirators  fell  into 
the  King's  hands  to  meet  the  same  fate.  They  drew  with 
them  in  their  doom  the  wretched  prisoner  in  whose  name 
they  had  risen.  A  great  council  held  after  the  suppression 
of  the  revolt  prayed  "that  if  Eichard,  the  late  King,  be 
alive,  as  some  suppose  he  is,  it  be  ordained  that  he  be  well 
and  securely  guarded  for  the  safety  of  the  states  of  the 
King  and  kingdom ;  but  if  he  be  dead,  then  that  he  be 
openly  showed  to  the  people  that  they  may  have  knowledge 
thereof."  The  ominous  words  were  soon  followed  by  news 
of  Eichard's  death  in  prison.  His  body  was  brought  to 
St.  Paul's,  Henry  himself  with  the  princes  of  the  blood 
royal  bearing  the  pall:  and  the  face  was  left  uncovered 
to  meet  rumours  that  the  prisoner  had  been  assassinated 
by  his  keeper,  Sir  Piers  Exton. 

Revolt  rf       In  June  Henry  marched  northward  to  end  the  trouble 
Wales.     from   tne  gcotg      With  tneir   ugual   p0iiCy  the    Scottish 

army  under  the  Duke  of  Albany  withdrew  as  the  English 
crossed  the  border,  and  looked  coolly  on  while  Henry 
invested  the  castle  of  Edinburgh.  The  wants  of  his  army 
forced  him  in  fact  to  raise  the  siege ;  but  even  success 
would  have  been  fruitless,  for  he  was  recalled  by  trouble 
nearer  home.  Wales  was  in  full  revolt.  The  country  had  been 
devoted  to  Eichard ;  and  so  notorious  was  its  disaffection 
to  the  new  line  that  when  Henry's  son  knelt  at  his  father's 
feet  to  receive  a  grant  of  the  Principality  a  shrewd  bystander 
murmured,  "  he  must  conquer  it  if  he  will  have  it."  The 
death  of  the  fallen  King  only  added  to  the  Welsh  disquiet, 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  527 

for  in  spite  of  the  public  exhibition  of  his  body  he  was  be-    CHAP.  V. 
lieved  to  be  still  alive.     Some  held  that  he  had  escaped  to       ^ 
Scotland,  and  an  impostor  who  took  his  name  was  long  main-  Lancaster, 
tained  at  the  Scottish  Court.  In  Wales  it  was  believed  that     1399- 
he  was  still  a  prisoner  in  Chester  Castle.     But  the  trouble     1Aaa- 
would  have  died  away  had  it  not  been  raised  into  revolt  by 
the   energy  of  Owen  Glyndwr  or  Glendower.     Owen  was 
a  descendant  of  one  of  the  last  native  Princes,  Llewelyn-ap- 
Jorwerth,  and  the  lord  of  considerable  estates  in  Merioneth. 
He  had  been  squire  of  the  body  to  Eichard  the  Second, 
and  had  clung  to  him  till  he  was  seized  at  Flint.     It  was 
probably  his  known  aversion  from  the  revolution  which  had 
deposed  his  master  that  brought  on  him  the  hostility  of 
Lord  Grey  of  Kuthin,  the  stay  of  the  Lancastrian  cause  in 
North  Wales  ;  and  the   same  political   ground  may  have 
existed  for  the  refusal  of  the  Parliament  to  listen  to   his 
prayer  for   redress   and   for  the  restoration  of  the  lands 
which  Grey  had  seized.     But  the  refusal  was  embittered  by 
words  of  insult ;  when  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph  warned 
them  of  Owen's  power  the  lords  retorted  that  "  they  cared 
not  for  barefoot  knaves."     They  were  soon  to  be  made  to 
care.     At  the  close  of  1400  Owen  rose  in  revolt,  burned 
the  town   of   Kuthin,   and   took   the   title  of  Prince   of 
Wales. 

His  action  at  once  changed  the  disaffection  into  a  national  Owen 
revolt.  His  raids  on  the  Marches  and  his  capture  of  Glyndwr. 
Eadnor  marked  its  importance,  and  Henry  marched  against 
him  in  the  summer  of  1401.  But  Glyndwr's  post  at 
Corwen  defied  attack,  and  the  pressure  in  the  north  forced 
the  King  to  march  away  into  Scotland.  Henry  Percy, 
who  held  the  castles  of  North  Wales  as  Constable,  was  left 
to  suppress  the  rebellion,  but  Owen  met  Percy's  arrival 
by  the  capture  of  Conway  and  the  King  was  forced  to 
hurry  fresh  forces  under  his  son  Henry  to  the  west. 
The  boy  was  too  young  as  yet  to  show  the  military  and 
political  ability  which  was  to  find  its  first  field  in  these 
Welsh  campaigns,  and  his  presence  did  little  to  stay  the 


528  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  V.    growth  of  revolt.     While  Owen's  lands  were  being  harried 
^       Owen  was  stirring  the  people  of  Caermarthen  into  rebellion 

Lancaster.  an(^  pressing  the  siege  of  Abergavenny;  nor  could  the 
1399-  presence  of  English  troops  save  Shropshire  from  pillage. 
1422.  Everywhere  the  Welshmen  rose  for  their  "Prince;"  the 
Bards  declared  his  victories  to  have  been  foretold  by 
Merlin ;  even  the  Welsh  scholars  at  Oxford  left  the  Uni- 
versity in  a  body  and  joined  his  standard.  The  castles  of 
Euthin,  Hawarden,  and  Flint  fell  into  his  hands,  and  with 
his  capture  of  Con  way  gave  him  command  of  North  Wales. 
The  arrival  of  help  from  Scotland  and  the  hope  of  help 
from  France  gave  fresh  vigour  to  Owen's  action,  and  though 
Percy  held  his  ground  stubbornly  on  the  coast  and 
even  recovered  Conway  he  at  last  threw  up  his  com- 
mand in  disgust.  A  fresh  inroad  of  Henry  on  his 
return  from  Scotland  again  failed  to  bring  Owen  to 
battle,  and  the  negotiations  which  he  carried  on  during 
the  following  winter  were  a  mere  blind  to  cover  prepara- 
tions for  a  new  attack.  So  strong  had  Glyndwr  become 
in  1402  that  in  June  he  was  able  to  face  an  English  army 
in  the  open  field  at  Brynglas  and  to  defeat  it  with  a  loss 
of  a  thousand  men.  The  King  again  marched  to  the 
border  to  revenge  this  blow.  But  the  storms  which  met 
him  as  he  entered  the  hills,  storms  which  his  archers 
ascribed  to  the  magic  powers  of  Owen,  ruined  his  army, 
and  he  was  forced  to  withdraw  as  of  old.  A  raid  over 
the  northern  border  distracted  the  English  forces.  A 
Scottish  army  entered  England  with  the  impostor  who 
bore  Eichard's  name,  and  though  it  was  utterly  defeated 
by  Henry  Percy  in  September  at  Homildon  Hill  the  re- 
spite had  served  Owen  well.  He  sallied  out  from  the 
inaccessible  fastnesses  in  which  he  had  held  Henry  at  bay 
to  win  victories  which  were  followed  by  the  adhesion  of 
all  North  Wales  and  of  great  part  of  South  Wales  to  his 
cause. 

The  What  gave  life  to  these  attacks  and  conspiracies  was 

Perdes     the  hostility  of  France.     The  influence  of  the  Duke  of 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  529 

Burgundy  was  still  strong  enough  to  prevent  any  formal  CHAP.  V. 
hostilities,  but  the  war  party  was  gaining  more  and  more  ^ 
the  ascendant.  Its  head,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  had  fanned  j^ncaster, 
the  growing  flame  by  sending  a  formal  defiance  to  Henry  1399- 
the  Fourth  as  the  murderer  of  Eichard.  French  knights  1^?2' 
were  among  the  prisoners  whom  the  Percies  took  at 
Homildon  Hill ;  and  it  may  have  been  through  their  inter- 
vention that  the  Percies  themselves  were  now  brought  into 
correspondence  with  the  court  of  France.  No  house  had 
played  a  greater  part  in  the  overthrow  of  Eichard,  or  had 
been  more  richly  rewarded  by  the  new  King.  But  old 
grudges  existed  between  the  house  of  Percy  and  the  house 
of  Lancaster.  The  Earl  of  Northumberland  had  been  at 
bitter  variance  with  John  of  Gaunt ;  and  though  a  common 
dread  of  Eichard's  enmity  had  thrown  the  Percies  and 
Henry  together  the  new  King  and  his  powerful  subjects 
were  soon  parted  again.  Henry  had  ground  indeed  for 
distrust.  The  death  of  Eichard  left  the  young  Mortimer, 
Earl  of  March,  next  claimant  in  blood  of  the  crown, 
and  the  King  had  shown  his  sense  of  this  danger  by 
imprisoning  the  earl  and  his  sisters  in  the  Tower.  But  this 
imprisonment  made  their  uncle,  Sir  Edmund  Mortimer,  the 
representative  of  their  house ;  and  Edmund  withdrew  to 
the  Welsh  Marches,  refusing  to  own  Henry  for  king.  The 
danger  was  averted  by  the  luck  which  threw  Sir  Edmund 
as  a  captive  into  the  hands  of  Owen  Glyndwr  in  the 
battle  of  Brynglas.  It  was  natural  that  Henry  should 
refuse  to  allow  Mortimer's  kinsmen  to  ransom  so  formidable 
an  enemy ;  but  among  these  kinsmen  Henry  Percy  ranked 
himself  through  his  marriage  with  Sir  Edmund's  sister, 
and  the  refusal  served  as  a  pretext  for  a  final  breach  with 
the  King. 

Percy  had  withdrawn  from  the  Welsh  war  in  wrath  at  Overthrow 
the  inadequate  support  which  Henry  gave  him ;  and  his  anger    p°£^?fc 
had  been  increased  by  a  delay  in  repayment  of  the  sums 
spent  by  his  house  in  the  contest  with  Scotland,  as  well  as 
by  the  King's  demand  that  he  should  surrender  the  Earl 


530 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  V.    of  Douglas 
The        Hill.     He 


whom   he  had  taken  prisoner    at 
became  the  centre  of  a     reat 


1399- 
1422. 


Homildon 

now  became  the  centre  of  a  great  conspiracy 
Lancaster  to  place  the  Earl  of  March  upon  the  throne.  His  father, 
the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  his  uncle,  Thomas  Percy,  the 
-£arj  Qf  Worcester,  joined  in  the  plot.  Sir  Edmund  Mor- 
timer negotiated  for  aid  from  Owen  Glyndwr  ;  the  Earl 
of  Douglas  threw  in  his  fortunes  with  the  confederates  ; 
and  Henry  Percy  himself  crossed  to  France  and  ob- 
tained promises  of  support.  The  war  party  had  now 
gained  the  upper  hand  at  the  French  court;  in  1403 
preparations  were  made  to  attack  Calais,  and  a  Breton 
fleet  put  to  sea.  At  the  news  of  its  presence  in  the 
Channel  Henry  Percy  and  the  Earl  of  Worcester  at  once 
rose  iu  the  north  and  struck  across  England  to  join  Owen 
Glyndwr  in  Wales,  while  the  Earl  of  Northumberland 
gathered  a  second  army  and  advanced  more  slowly  to  their 
support.  But  Glyndwr  was  still  busy  with  the  siege  of 
Caermarthen,  and  the  King  by  a  hasty  march  flung  himself 
across  the  road  of  the  Percies  as  they  reached  Shrewsbury. 
On  the  twenty-third  of  July  a  fierce  fight  ended  in  the 
defeat  of  the  rebel  force.  Henry  Percy  was  slain  in  battle, 
the  Earl  of  Worcester  taken  and  beheaded  ;  while  North- 
umberland, who  had  been  delayed  by  an  army  under  his 
rival  in  the  north,  Neville,  Earl  of  Westmoreland,  was 
thrown  into  prison,  and  only  pardoned  on  his  protesta- 
tions of  innocence.  The  quick,  hard  blow  did  its  work. 
The  young  Earl  of  March  betrayed  the  plans  of  his  par- 
tizans  to  purchase  pardon.  The  Breton  fleet,  which  had 
defeated  an  English  fleet  in  the  Channel  and  made  a 
descent  upon  Plymouth,  withdrew  to  its  harbours;  and 
though  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  was  on  the  point  of  com- 
mencing the  siege  of  Calais  the  plans  of  an  attack  on 
that  town  were  no  more  heard  of. 

But  the  difficulty  of  Wales  remained  as  great  as  ever. 
The  discouragement  of  Owen  at  the  failure  of  the  con- 
spiracy  of  the  Percies  was  removed  by  the  open  aid  of 
the  French  Court.  In  July  1404  the  French  King  in  a 


Henry's 
diffi- 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307-1461. 


531 


formal  treaty  owned  Glyndwr  as  Prince  of  Wales,  and  his 
promises  of  aid  gave  fresh  heart  to  the  insurgents.  What 
hampered  Henry's  efforts  most  in  meeting  this  danger 
was  the  want  of  money.  At  the  opening  of  1404  the 
Parliament  grudgingly  gave  a  subsidy  of  a  twentieth,  but 
the  treasury  called  for  fresh  supplies  in  October,  and  the 
wearied  Commons  fell  back  on  their  old  proposal  of  a 
confiscation  of  Church  property.  Under  the  influence  of 
Archbishop  Arundel  the  Lords  succeeded  in  quashing 
the  project,  and  a  new  subsidy  was  voted  ;  but  the 
treasury  was  soon  as  empty  as  before.  Treason  was  still 
rife  ;  the  Duke  of  York,  who  had  played  so  conspicuous 
a  part  in  Richard's  day  as  Earl  of  Rutland,  was  sent  for 
a  while  to  the  Tower  on  suspicion  of  complicity  in  an 
attempt  of  his  sister  to  release  the  Earl  of  March;  and 
Glyndwr  remained  unconquerable. 

But  fortune  was  now  beginning  to  turn.  The  danger 
from  Scotland  was  suddenly  removed.  King  Kobert 
resolved  to  send  his  son  James  for  training  to  the  court  of 
France,  but  the  boy  was  driven  to  the  English  coast  by  a 
storm  and  Henry  refused  to  release  him.  Had  the  Scots 
been  friends,  the  King  jested,  they  would  have  sent  James 
to  him  for  education,  as  he  knew  the  French  tongue  quite 
as  well  as  King  Charles.  Robert  died  of  grief  at  the  news  ; 
and  Scotland  fell  into  the  hands  of  his  brother,  the  Duke  of 
Albany,  whose  one  aim  was  that  his  nephew  should  remain 
a  prisoner.  James  grew  up  at  the  English  Court;  and 
prisoner  though  he  was,  the  excellence  of  his  training 
was  seen  in  the  poetry  and  intelligence  of  his  later  life. 
But  with  its  King  as  a  hostage  Scotland  was  no  longer  to 
be  dreaded  as  a  foe.  France  too  was  weakened  at  this 
moment  ;  for  in  1405  the  long  smouldering  jealousy  be- 
tween the  Dukes  of  Orleans  and  of  Burgundy  broke  out  at 
last  into  open  strife.  The  break  did  little  indeed  to  check 
the  desultory  hostilities  which  were  going  on.  A  Breton 
fleet  made  descents  on  Portland  and  Dartmouth.  The 
Count  of  Armagnac,  the  strongest  supporter  of  Orleans 


CHAP.  V. 


1A2a- 


Turn  of 
i 


532  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  V.    and   the   war  party,   led   troops    against   the   frontier   of 

The        Guienne.      But  the  weakness  of  France  and  the  exhaus- 

L^ncaster.  tion    °f  its   treasury  prevented   any  formal  denunciation 

1399-      of  the  truce  or  declaration  of  war.     Though  Henry  could 

J^?'      spare  not  a  soldier  for  Guienne  Armagnac  did  little  hurt. 

An  English   fleet  repaid   the   ravages  of   the  Bretons  by 

harrying  the  coast  of  Britanny ;  and  the  turn  of  French 

politics  soon  gave  Frenchmen  too  much  work  at  home  to 

spare   men  for  work  abroad.     At  the  close  of   1407  the 

murder  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  by  the  order  of  the  Duke 

of  Burgundy  changed  the   weak  and  fitful   strife  which 

had  been  going  on  into  a  struggle  of  the  bitterest  hate. 

The  Count  of  Armagnac   placed  himself  at  the  head  of 

the   murdered    duke's    partizans ;    and    in    their    furious 

antagonism  Armagnac  and  Burgundian  alike  sought  aid 

from  the  English  King. 

Prince         But  the  fortune  which  favoured  Henry  elsewhere  was 
Henry.     ^^  ^Qw  ^  tum  JQ  the  Wegt      JQ  ^  Opening  of  1405 

the  King's  son,  Henry  Prince  of  "Wales,  had  taken  the 
field  against  Glyndwr.  Young  as  he  was,  Henry  was 
already  a  tried  soldier.  As  a  boy  of  thirteen  he  had 
headed  an  incursion  into  Scotland  in  the  year  of  his 
father's  accession  to  the  throne.  At  fifteen  he  fought 
in  the  front  of  the  royal  army  in  the  desperate  fight  at 
Shrewsbury.  Slight  and  tall  in  stature  as  he  seemed,  he 
had  outgrown  the  weakness  of  his  earlier  years  and  was 
vigorous  and  swift  of  foot ;  his  manners  were  courteous, 
his  air  grave  and  reserved;  and  though  wild  tales  ran  of 
revels  and  riots  among  his  friends,  the  poets  whom  he 
favoured  and  Lydgate  whom  he  set  to  translate  "  the  drery 
piteous  tale  of  him  of  Troy"  saw  in  him  a  youth  "both 
manful  and  vertuous."  There  was  little  time  indeed  for 
mere  riot  in  a  life  so  busy  as  Henry's,  nor  were  many 
opportunities  for  self-indulgence  to  be  found  in  campaigns 
against  Glyndwr.  What  fitted  the  young  general  of  seven- 
teen for  the  thankless  work  in  Wales  was  his  stern,  im- 
moveable  will.  But  fortune  as  yet  had  few  smiles  for  the 


.TV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  533 

King  in  this  quarter,  and  his  constant  ill-success  con-  CHAP.  V. 
tinued  to  wake  fresh  troubles  within  England  itself.  The  ^ 
repulse  of  the  young  prince  in  a  spring  campaign  in  1405  j^caster 
was  at  once  followed  by  a  revolt  in  the  north.  The  1^9. 
pardon  of  Northumberland  had  left  him  still  a  foe ;  the  14aa- 
Earl  of  Nottingham  was  son  of  Henry's  opponent,  the 
banished  Duke  of  Norfolk;  Scrope,  Archbishop  of  York, 
was  brother  of  Richard's  counsellor,  the  Earl  of  Wiltshire, 
who  had  been  beheaded  on  the  surrender  of  Bristol.  Their 
rising  in  May  might  have  proved  a  serious  danger  had 
not  the  treachery  of  Ralph  Neville,  the  Earl  of  Westmore- 
land, who  still  remained  steady  to  the  Lancastrian  cause, 
secured  the  arrest  of  some  of  its  leaders.  Scrope  and  Lord 
Nottingham  were  beheaded,  while  Northumberland  and 
his  partizan  Lord  Bardolf  fled  into  Scotland  and  from 
thence  to  Wales.  Succours  from  France  stirred  the  King 
to  a  renewed  attack  on  Gly ndwr  in  November ;  but  with  the 
same  ill-success.  Storms  and  want  of  food  wrecked  the 
English  army  and  forced  it  to  retreat ;  a  year  of  rest  raised 
Glyndwr  to  new  strength ;  and  when  the  long  promised 
body  of  eight  thousand  Frenchmen  joined  him  in  1407 
he  ventured  even  to  cross  the  border  and  to  threaten 
Worcester.  The  threat  was  a  vaiii  one  and  the  Welsh 
army  soon  withdrew ;  but  the  insult  gave  fresh  heart  to 
Henry's  foes,  and  in  1408  Northumberland  and  Bardolf 
again  appeared  in  the  north.  Their  overthrow  at 
Bramliam  Moor  put  an  end  to  the  danger  from  the  Percies; 
for  Northumberland  and  Bardolf  alike  fell  on  the  field. 
But  Wales  remained  as  defiant  as  ever.  In  1409  a  body  of 
Welshmen  poured  ravaging  into  Shropshire  ;  many  of  the 
English  towns  had  fallen  into  Glyndwr's  hands ;  and  some 
of  the  marcher-lords  made  private  truces  with  him. 

The  weakness  which  was  produced  by  this  ill-success  in  Oldcastle. 
the  West  as  well  as  these  constant  battlings  with  dis- 
affection within  the  realm  was  seen  in  the  attitude  of  the 
Lollards.     Lollardry  was  far  from  having  been  crushed  by 
the  Statute  of  Heresy.    The  death  of  the  Earl  of  Salisbury 

YOL.  I.— 35 


534  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  V.  in  the  first  of  the  revolts  against  Henry's  throne,  though 
x^  his  gory  head  was  welcomed  into  London  by  a  procession 

Lancaster.  °f  abbots  and  bishops  who  went  out  singing  psalms  of 
1399-  thanksgiving  to  meet  it,  only  transferred  the  leadership 

1 .  "  of  the  party  to  one  of  the  foremost  warriors  of  the  time, 

Sir  John  Oldcastle.  If  we  believe  his  opponents,  and  we 
have  no  information  about  him  save  from  hostile  sources, 
he  was  of  lowly  origin,  and  his  rise  must  have  been  due 
to  his  own  capacity  and  services  to  the  Crown.  In  his 
youth  he  had  listened  to  the  preaching  of  Wyclif,  and  his 
Lollardry — if  we  may  judge  from,  its  tone  in  later  years — 
was  a  violent  fanaticism.  But  this  formed  no  obstacle  to 
his  rise  in  Eichard's  reign ;  his  marriage  with  the  heiress 
of  that  house  made  him  Lord  Cobham  ;  and  the  accession 
of  Henry  of  Lancaster,  to  whose  cause  he  seems  to  have 
clung  in  these  younger  days,  brought  him  fairly  to  the 
front.  His  skill  in  arms  found  recognition  in  his  appoint- 
ment as  sheriff  of  Herefordshire  and  as  castellan  of 
Brecknock;  and  he  was  among  the  leaders  who  were 
chosen  in  later  years  for  service  in  France.  His  warlike 
renown  endeared  him  to  the  King,  and  Prince  Henry 
counted  him  among  the  most  illustrious  of  his  servants. 
The  favour  of  the  royal  house  was  the  more  noteable  that 
Oldcastle  was  known  as  "leader  and  captain"  of  the 
Lollards.  His  Kentish  castle  of  Cowling  served  as  the 
headquarters  of  the  sect,  and  their  preachers  were  openly 
entertained  at  his  houses  in  London  or  on  the  Welsh 
border.  The  Convocation  of  1413  charged  him  Avith  being 
"  the  principal  receiver,  favourer,  protector,  and  defender 
of  them ;  and  that,  especially  in  the  dioceses  of  London, 
Eochester,  and  Hereford,  he  hath  sent  out  the  said  Lollards 
to  preach  ....  and  hath  been  present  at  their  wicked 
sermons,  grievously  punishing  with  threatenings,  terror, 
and  the  power  of  the  secular  sword  such  as  did  withstand 
them,  alleging  and  affirming  among  other  matters  that  we, 
the  bishops,  had  no  power  to  make  any  such  Constitutions  " 
as  the  Provincial  Constitutions  in  which  they  had  for- 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


535 


bidden  the  preaching  of  unlicensed  preachers.  The  bold  CHAP.  V. 
stand  of  Lord  Cobham  drew  fresh  influence  from  the  ^ 
sanctity  of  his  life.  Though  the  clergy  charged  him  with  ^caster. 
the  foulest  heresy,  they  owned  that  he  shrouded  it  "  under  1399- 
a  veil  of  holiness."  What  chiefly  moved  their  wrath  was  1A23' 
that  he  "  armed  the  hands  of  laymen  for  the  spoil  of  the 
Church."  The  phrase  seems  to  hint  that  Oldcastle  was  the 
mover  in  the  repeated  attempts  of  the  Commons  to  supply 
the  needs  of  the  state  by  a  confiscation  of  Church  pro- 
perty. In  1404  they  prayed  that  the  needs  of  the  kingdom 
might  be  defrayed  by  a  confiscation  of  Church  lands, 
and  though  this  prayer  was  fiercely  met  by  Archbishop 
Arundel  it  was  renewed  in  1410.  The  Commons  declared 
as  before  that  by  devoting  the  revenues  of  the  prelates 
to  the  service  of  the  state  maintenance  could  be  made  for 
fifteen  earls,  fifteen  hundred  knights,  and  six  thousand 
squires,  while  a  hundred  hospitals  might  be  established  for 
the  sick  and  infirm.  Such  proposals  had  been  commonly 
made  by  the  baronial  party  with  which  the  house  of  Lancaster 
had  in  former  days  been  connected,  and  hostile  as  they  were 
to  the  Church  as  an  establishment  they  had  no  necessary 
connexion  with  any  hostility  to  its  doctrines.  But  a 
direct  sympathy  with  Lollardism  was  seen  in  the  further 
proposals  of  the  Commons.  They  prayed  for  the  abolition 
of  episcopal  jurisdiction  over  the  clergy  and  for  a  mitiga- 
tion of  the  Statute  of  Heresy. 

But  formidable  as  the  movement  seemed  it  found  a  Action  of 
formidable  opponent.  The  steady  fighting  of  Prince  Henry  jj™™ 
had  at  last  met  the  danger  from  Wales,  and  Glyndwr, 
though  still  un  conquered,  saw  district  after  district  submit 
again  to  English  rule.  From  Wales  the  Prince  returned 
to  bring  his  will  to  bear  on  England  itself.  It  was  through 
his  strenuous  opposition  that  the  proposals  of  the  Commons 
in  1410  were  rejected  by  the  Lords.  He  gave  at  the  same 
moment  a  more  terrible  proof  of  his  loyalty  to  the  Church 
in  personally  assisting  at  the  burning  of  a  layman,  Thomas 
Badby,  for  a  denial  of  transubstantiation.  The  prayers  of 


536 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  V. 

The 

House  of 
Lancaster. 

1399- 
1422. 


Death  of 

Henry  the 

Fourth. 


the  sufferer  were  taken  for  a  recantation,  and  the  Prince 
ordered  the  fire  to  be  plucked  away.  But  when  the  offer 
of  life  and  a  pension  failed  to  break  the  spirit  of  the 
Lollard  Henry  pitilessly  bade  him  be  hurled  back  to  his 
doom.  The  Prince  was  now  the  virtual  ruler  of  the  realm. 
His  father's  earlier  popularity  had  disappeared  amidst 
the  troubles  and  heavy  taxation  of  his  reign.  He  was 
already  a  victim  to  the  attack  of  epilepsy  which  brought 
him  to  the  grave;  and  in  the  opening  of  1410  the  Par- 
liament called  for  the  appointment  of  a  Continual  CounciL 
The  Council  was  appointed,  and  the  Prince  placed  at  its 
head.  His  energy  was  soon  seen  in  a  more  active  inter- 
position in  the  affairs  of  France.  So  bitter  had  the  hatred 
grown  between  the  Burgundian  and  Armagnac  parties  that 
both  in  turn»  appealed  again  to  England  for  help.  The 
Burgundian  alliance  found  favour  with  the  Council.  In 
August,  1411,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  offered  his  daughter 
in  marriage  to  the  Prince  as  the  price  of  English  aid, 
and  four  thousand  men  with  Lord  Cobham  among  their 
leaders  were  sent  to  join  his  forces  at  Paris.  Their  help 
enabled  Duke  John  to  bring  his  opponents  to  battle  at  St. 
Cloud,  and  to  win  a  decisive  victory  in  November.  But 
already  the  King  was  showing  himself  impatient  of  the 
Council's  control ;  and  the  Parliament  significantly  prayed 
that  "  as  there  had  been  a  great  murmur  among  your  people 
that  you  have  had  in  your  heart  a  heavy  load  against  some 
of  your  lieges  come  to  this  present  Parliament,"  they  might 
be  formally  declared  to  be  "  faithful  lieges  and  servants." 
The  prayer  was  granted,  but  in  spite  of  the  support  which 
the  Houses  gave  to  the  Prince,  Henry  the  Eourth  was 
resolute  to  assert  his  power.  At  the  close  of  1411  he 
declared  his  will  to  stand  in  as  great  freedom,  prerogative, 
and  franchise  as  any  of  his  predecessors  had  done,  and 
annulled  on  that  ground  the  appointment  of  the  Continual 
Council. 

The  King's  blow  had  been  dealt  at  the  instigation  of  his 
Queen,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  prompted  as  much  by 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  537 

a  resolve  to  change  the  outer  policy  which  the  Prince    CHAP.  V. 

had  adopted  as  to  free  himself  from  the  Council.     The        ^e 

dismissal  of  the  English  troops  by  John  of  Burgundy  after  Lancaster. 

his  victory  at  St.  Cloud  had  irritated  the  English  Court ;     1399- 

and  the  Duke  of  Orleans  took  advantage  of  this  turn  of     14aa* 

feeling  to  offer  Catharine,  the  French  King's  daughter,  in 

marriage  to  the  Prince,  and  to  promise  the  restoration  of 

all  that  England  claimed  in  Guienne  and  Poitou.     In  spite 

of  the  efforts  of  the  Prince  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  a 

treaty  of  alliance  with  Orleans  was  signed  on  these  terms 

in  May,  1412,  and  a  force  under  the  King's  second  son,  the 

Duke  of  Clarence,  disembarked  at  La  Hogue.     But  the 

very  profusion  of  the  Orleanist  offers  threw  doubt  on  their 

sincerity.    The  Duke  was  only  using  the  English  aid  to  put 

a  pressure  on  his  antagonist,  and  its  landing  in  August  at 

once  brought  John  of  Burgundy  to  a  seeming  submission. 

While  Clarence  penetrated  by  Normandy  and  Maine  into 

the  Orleauois  and  a  second  English  force  sailed  for  Calais, 

both  the  French  parties  joined  in  pledging  their  services  to 

King  Charles  "  against  his  adversary  of  England."     Before 

this   union  Clarence  was  forced  in  November  to  accept 

promise  of  payment  for  his  men  from  the  Duke  of  Orleans 

and  to  fall  back  on  Bordeaux.     The  failure  no  doubt  gave 

fresh  strength  to  Prince  Henry.    In  the  opening  of  1412  he 

had  been  discharged  from  the  Council  and  Clarence  set  in 

his  place  at  its  head ;  he  had  been  defeated  in  his  attempts 

to  renew  the  Burgundian  alliance,  and  had  striven  in  vain 

to  hinder  Clarence  from  sailing.     The  break  grew  into  an 

open   quarrel.      Letters   were   sent  into  various  counties 

refuting   the    charges  of  the   Prince's  detractors,  and  in 

September  Henry  himself  appeared  before  his  father  with 

a  crowd  of  his  friends   and   supporters   demanding  the 

punishment   of  those   who   accused   him.      The   charges 

made  against  him  were  that  he  sought  to  bring  about  the 

King's  removal  from  the  throne ;  and  "  the  great  recourse 

of  people  unto  him,  of  which  his  court  was  at  all  times 

more   abundant  than   his   father's,"   gave   colour  to  the 


538  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

accusation.  Henry  the  Fourth  owned  his  belief  in  these 
charges,  but  promised  to  call  a  Parliament  for  his  son's 
iSncaster  vindication ;  and  the  Parliament  met  in  the  February  of 
1399-  1413.  But  a  new  attack  of  epilepsy  had  weakened  the 
1422.  j^ing'g  strength ;  and  though  galleys  were  gathered  for  a 
Crusade  which  he  had  vowed  he  was  too  weak  to  meet 
the  Houses  on  their  assembly.  If  we  may  trust  a  charge 
which  was  afterwards  denied,  the  King's  half-brother, 
Bishop  Henry  of  Winchester,  one  of  the  Beaufort  children 
of  John  of  Gaunt,  acting  in  secret  co-operation  with  the 
Prince,  now  brought  the  peers  to  pray  Henry  to  suffer  his 
son  to  be  crowned  in  his  stead.  The  King's  refusal  was 
the  last  act  of  a  dying  man.  Before  the  end  of  March  he 
breathed  his  last  in  the  "  Jerusalem  Chamber  "  within  the 
Abbot's  house  at  "Westminster ;  and  the  Prince  obtained 
the  crown  which  he  had  sought. 

Suppres-  The  removal  of  Archbishop  Arundel  from  the  Chancellor- 
sionofthe  ship,  which  was  given  to  Henry  Beaufort  of  Winchester, 
s'  was  among  the  first  acts  of  Henry  the  Fifth  ;  and  it  is  pro- 
bable that  this  blow  at  the  great  foe  of  the  Lollards  gave 
encouragement  to  the  hopes  of  Oldcastle.  He  seized  the 
opportunity  of  the  coronation  in  April  to  press  his  opinions 
on  the  young  King,  though  probably  rather  with  a  view  to 
the  plunder  of  the  Church  than  to  any  directly  religious  end. 
From  the  words  of  the  clerical  chroniclers  it  is  plain  that 
Henry  had  no  mind  as  yet  for  any  open  strife  with  either 
party,  and  that  he  quietly  put  the  matter  aside.  He  was 
in  fact  busy  with  foreign  affairs.  The  Duke  of  Clarence 
was  recalled  from  Bordeaux,  and  a  new  truce  concluded 
with  France.  The  policy  of  Henry  was  clearly  to  look  on 
for  awhile  at  the  shifting  politics  of  the  distracted  kingdom. 
Soon  after  his  accession  another  revolution  in  Paris  gave 
the  charge  of  the  mad  King  Charles,  and  with  it  the 
nominal  government  of  the  realm,  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans; 
and  his  cause  derived  fresh  strength  from  the  support  of 
the  young  Dauphin,  who  was  afterwards  to  play  so  great  a 
part  in  the  history  of  France  as  Charles  the  Seventh.  John 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  539 

of  Burgundy  withdrew  to  Flanders,  and  both  parties  again    CHAP.  V. 
sought  Henry's  aid.     But  his  hands  were  tied  as  yet  by       T^ 
trouble  at  home.    Oldcastle  was  far  from  having  abandoned  Lancaster 
his  projects,  discouraged  as  they  had  been  by  his  master;     1399- 
while  the  suspicions  of  Henry's  favour  to  the  Lollard  cause 
which  could  hardly  fail  to  be  roused  by  his  favour  to  the 
Lollard  leader  only  spurred  the  bold  spirit  of  Arundel  to 
energetic    action.     A  council  of  bishops  gathered   in   the 
summer   to  denounce   Lollardry  and   at   once   called  on 
Henry  to  suffer  Oldcastle  to  be  brought  to  justice.     The 
King  pleaded  for  delay  in  the  case  of  one  who  was  so  close 
a  friend,  and  strove  personally  to  convince  Lord  Cobhani 
of  his  errors.     All  however  was   in  vain,  and  Oldcastle 
withdrew  to  his  castle  of  Cowling,  while  Arundel  summoned 
him  before  his  court  ana  convicted  him  as  a  heretic.     His 
open  defiance  at  last  forced  the  King  to  act.    In  September 
a  body  of  royal  troops  arrested  Lord  Cobham  and  carried 
him  to  the  Tower ;  but  his  life  was  still  spared,  and  after 
a  month's  confinement  his  imprisonment  was  relaxed  on  his 
promise  of  recantation.    Cobham  however  had  now  resolved 
on  open  resistance.    He  broke  from  the  Tower  in  November, 
and  from  his  hiding-place  organized  a  vast  revolt.     At  the 
opening  of  1414  a  secret  order  summoned  the  Lollards  to 
assemble  in  St.  Giles's  Fields  outside  London.     We  gather, 
if   not   the  real  aims  of  the  rising,  at  least   the   terror 
it  caused,  from  Henry's  statement  that  its  purpose  was  "  to 
destroy  himself,  his  brothers,  and  several  of  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  lords;"  from  Cobham's  later  declarations  it 
is  probable  that  the  pretext  of  the  rising  was  to  release 
Richard,  whom  he  asserted  to  be  still  alive,  and  to  set  him 
again  on  the  throne.     But  the  vigilance  of  the  young  King 
prevented  the  junction  of  the  Lollards  within  the  city  with 
their  confederates  without,  and  these  as  they  appeared  at 
the  place  of  meeting  were  dispersed  by  the  royal  troops. 

The  failure  of  the  rising  only  increased  the  rigour  of  the 
law.  Magistrates  were  directed  to  arrest  all  heretics  and 
hand  them  over  to  the  bishops ;  a  conviction  of  heresy  was 


540 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1399- 
1422, 


Renewal 
of  the 

French 
War. 


CHAP.  V.  made  to  entail  forfeiture  of  blood  and  estate ;  and  the 
execution  of  thirty-nine  prominent  Lollards  as  traitors 
gave  terrible  earnest  of  the  King's  resolve  to  suppress  their 
sect.  Oldcastle  escaped,  and  for  four  years  longer  strove  to 
rouse  revolt  after  revolt.  He  was  at  last  captured  on 
the  Welsh  border  and  burned  as  a  heretic ;  but  from  the 
moment  when  his  attempt  at  revolt  was  crushed  in  St. 
Giles's  Fields  the  dread  of  Lollardry  was  broken  and 
Henry  was  free  to  take  a  more  energetic  course  of  policy 
on  the  other  side  the  sea.  He  had  already  been  silently 
preparing  for  action  by  conciliatory  measures,  by  restoring 
Henry  Percy's  son  to  the  Earldom  of  Northumberland,  by 
the  release  of  the  Earl  of  March,  and  by  the  solemn  burial 
of  Eichard  the  Second  at  Westminster.  The  suppression 
of  the  Lollard  revolt  was  followed  by  a  demand  for  the 
restoration  of  the  English  possessions  in  France,  and  by 
alliances  and  preparations  for  war.  Burgundy  stood  aloof 
in  a  sullen  neutrality,  and  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  was 
now  virtually  ruler  of  the  French  kingdom,  in  vain  pro- 
posed concession  after  concession.  All  negotiation  indeed 
broke  down  when  Henry  formally  put  forward  his  claim 
on  the  crown  of  France.  No  claim  could  have  been  more 
utterly  baseless,  for  the  Parliamentary  title  by  which  the 
House  of  Lancaster  held  England  could  give  it  no  right 
over  France,  and  the  strict  law  of  hereditary  succession 
which  Edward  asserted  could  be  pleaded,  if  pleaded  at  all, 
only  by  the  House  of  Mortimer.  Not  only  the  claim 
indeed,  but  the  very  nature  of  the  war  itself  was  wholly 
different  from  that  of  Edward  the  Third.  Edward  had 
been  forced  into  the  struggle  against  his  will  by  the  ceaseless 
attacks  of  France,  and  his  claim  of  the  crown  was  little  but 
an  afterthought  to  secure  the  alliance  of  Flanders.  The 
war  of  Henry  on  the  other  hand,  though  in  form  a  mere 
renewal  of  the  earlier  struggle  on  the  close  of  the 
truce  made  by  Richard  the  Second,  was  in  fact  an  aggres- 
sion on  the  part  of  a  nation  tempted  by  the  helplessness 
of  its  opponent  and  galled  by  the  memory  of  former  defeat. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  541 

, 1 

Its  one  excuse  lay  in  the  attacks  which  France  for  the  past  CHAP.  V. 
fifteen  years  had  directed  against  the  Lancastrian  throne, 
its  encouragement  of  every  enemy  without  and  of  every 
traitor  within.  Henry  may  fairly  have  regarded  such 
a  ceaseless  hostility,  continued  even  through  years  of  weak- 
ness,  as  forcing  him  in  sheer  self-defence  to  secure  his 
realm  against  the  weightier  attack  which  might  be  looked 
for,  should  France  recover  her  strength. 

In  the  summer  of  1415  the  King  prepared  to  sail  from  Agincourt. 
Southampton,  when  a  plot  reminded  him  of  the  insecurity 
of  his  throne.  The  Earl  of  March  was  faithful :  but  he 
was  childless,  and  his  claim  would  pass  at  his  death  through 
a  sister  who  had  wedded  the  Earl  of  Cambridge,  a  son 
of  the  Duke  of  York,  to  her  child  Pachard,  the  Duke  who 
was  to  play  so  great  a  part  in  the  War  of  the  Eoses.  It 
was  to  secure  his  boy's  claims  that  the  Earl  of  Cambridge 
seized  on  the  King's  departure  to  conspire  with  Lord  Scrope 
and  Sir  Thomas  Grey  to  proclaim  the  Earl  of  March  King. 
The  plot  however  was  discovered  and  the  plotters  beheaded 
before  the  King  sailed  in  August  for  the  Norman  coast. 
His  first  exploit  was  the  capture  of  Harfleur.  Dysentery 
made  havoc  in  his  ranks  during  the  siege,  and  it  was  with 
a  mere  handful  of  men  that  he  resolved  to  insult  the 
enemy  by  a  daring  march  like  that  of  Edward  upon 
Calais.  The  discord  however  on  which  he  probably 
reckoned  for  security  vanished  before  the  actual  appear- 
ance of  the  invaders  in  the  heart  of  France;  and  when 
his  weary  and  half-starved  force  succeeded  in  crossing  the 
Somme  it  found  sixty  thousand  Frenchmen  encamped  on 
the  field  of  Agincourt  right  across  its  line  of  march.  Their 
position,  flanked  on  either  side  by  woods,  but  with  a  front 
so  narrow  that  the  dense  masses  were  drawn  up  thirty 
men  deep,  though  strong  for  purposes  of  defence  was  ill 
suited  for  attack;  and  the  French  leaders,  warned  by 
the  experience  of  Creqy  and  Poitiers,  resolved  to  await 
the  English  advance.  Henry  on  the  other  hand  had  no 
choice  between  attack  and  unconditional  surrender.  His 


542 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE         [BOOK 


The 

House  of 
Lancaster. 

1399 
1422. 


CHAP.  V.  troops  were  starving,  and  the  way  to  Calais  lay  across  the 
French  army.  But  the  King's  courage  rose  with  the  peril. 
A  knight  in  his  train  wished  that  the  thousands  of  stout 
warriors  lying  idle  that  night  in  England  had  been  stand- 
ing in  his  ranks.  Henry  answered  with  a  burst  of  scorn. 
"  I  would  not  have  a  single  man  more,"  he  replied.  "  If 
God  give  us  the  victory,  it  will  be  plain  we  owe  it  to  His 
grace.  If  not,  the  fewer  we  are,  the  less  loss  for  England." 
Starving  and  sick  as  they  were,  the  handful  of  men  whom 
he  led  shared  the  spirit  of  their  king.  As  the  chill 
rainy  night  passed  away  he  drew  up  his  army  on  the 
twenty-fifth  of  October  and  boldly  gave  battle.  The 
English  archers  bared  their  arms  and  breasts  to  give 
fair  play  to  "  the  crooked  stick  and  the  grey  goose  wing," 
but  for  which — as  the  rime  ran — "  England  were  but  a 
fling,"  and  with  a  great  shout  sprang  forward  to  the  attack. 
The  sight  of  their  advance  roused  the  fiery  pride  of  the 
French ;  the  wise  resolve  of  their  leaders  was  forgotten, 
and  the  dense  mass  of  men-at-arms  plunged  heavily  for- 
ward through  miry  ground  on  the  English  front.  But 
at  the  first  sign  of  movement  Henry  had  halted  his  line, 
and  fixing  in  the  ground  the  sharpened  stakes  with  which 
each  man  was  furnished  his  archers  poured  their  fatal 
arrow  flights  into  the  hostile  ranks.  The  carnage  wras  ter- 
rible, for  though  the  desperate  charges  of  the  French  knight- 
hood at  last  drove  the  English  archers  to  the  neighbouring 
woods,  from  the  skirt  of  these  woods  they  were  still 
able  to  pour  their  shot  into  the  enemy's  flanks,  while 
Henry  with  the  men-at-arms  around  him  flung  himself  on 
the  French  line.  In  the  terrible  struggle  which  followed 
the  King  bore  off  the  palm  of  bravery  :  he  was  felled  once 
by  a  blow  from  a  French  mace  and  the  crown  of  his  helmet 
was  cleft  by  the  sword  of  the  Duke  of  Alenc,on ;  but  the 
enemy  was  at  last  broken,  and  the  defeat  of  the  main  body 
of  the  French  was  followed  by  the  rout  of  their  reserve. 
The  triumph  was  more  complete,  as  the  odds  were  even 
greater,  than  at  Cre9y.  Eleven  thousand  Frenchmen  lay 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  543 

dead  on  the  field,  and  more  than  a  hundred  princes  and  CHAP.  V. 
great  lords  were  among  the  fallen.  The 

The  immediate  result  of  the  battle  of  Agincourt  was  ^caster 

small,  for  the  English  army  was  too  exhausted  for  pursuit,  1399- 

and  it  made  its  way  to  Calais  only  to  return  to  England.  1'^?- 
Through  1416  the  war  was  limited  to  a  contest  for  the 

command  of  the  Channel,  till  the  increasing  bitterness  of  Conquer 

of  J\or- 

the  strife  between  the  Burgundians  and  Armagnacs  and  mandij. 
the  consent  of  John  of  Burgundy  to  conclude  an  alliance 
encouraged  Henry  to  resume  his  attempt  to  recover  Nor- 
mandy. Whatever  may  have  been  his  aim  in  this  enter- 
prize — whether  it  were,  as  has  been  suggested,  to  provide 
a  refuge  for  his  house,  should  its  power  be  broken  in 
England,  or  simply  to  acquire  a  command  of  the  seas — 
the  patience  and  skill  with  which  his  object  was  accom- 
plished raise  him  high  in  the  rank  of  military  leaders. 
Disembarking  in  July  1417  with  an  army  of  forty  thousand 
men  near  the  mouth  of  the  Touque,  he  stormed  Caen, 
received  the  surrender  of  Bayeux,  reduced  Alen9on  and 
Falaise,  and  detaching  his  brother  the  Duke  of  Gloucester 
in  the  spring  of  1418  to  occupy  the  Cotentin  made  himself 
master  of  Avranches  and  Domfront.  With  Lower  Nor- 
mandy wholly  in  his  hands,  he  advanced  upon  Evreux, 
captured  Louviers,  and  seizing  Pont  de  1'Arche,  threw  his 
troops  across  the  Seine.  The  end  of  these  masterly  move- 
ments was  now  revealed.  Rouen  was  at  this  time  the 
largest  and  wealthiest  of  the  towns  of  France ;  its  walls 
were  defended  by  a  powerful  artillery ;  Alan  Blanchard,  a 
brave  and  resolute  patriot,  infused  the  fire  of  his  own 
temper  into  the  vast  population  ;  and  the  garrison,  already 
strong,  was  backed  by  fifteen  thousand  citizens  in  arms. 
But  the  genius  of  Henry  was  more  than  equal  to  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  he  had  to  deal.  He  had  secured 
himself  from  an  attack  on  his  rear  by  the  reduction  of 
Lower  Normandy,  his  earlier  occupation  of  Harfleur 
severed  the  town  from  the  sea,  and  his  conquest  of  Pont 
de  1'Ajche  cut  it  off  from  relief  on  the  side  of  Paris. 


544 


HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  V. 

The 

.House  of 
Lancaster. 

1399- 
1422. 


Death  of 

Henry  the 

Fifth. 


Slowly  but  steadily  the  King  drew  his  lines  of  investment 
round  the  doomed  city ;  a  flotilla  was  brought  up  from 
Harfleur,  a  bridge  of  boats  thrown  over  the  Seine  above 
the  town,  the  deep  trenches  of  the  besiegers  protected  by 
posts,  and  the  desperate  sallies  of  the  garrison  stubbornly 
b'eaten  back.  For  six  months  Eouen  held  resolutely  out, 
but  famine  told  fast  on  the  vast  throng  of  country  folk 
who  had  taken  refuge  within  its  walls.  Twelve  thousand 
of  these  were  at  last  thrust  out  of  the  city  gates,  but  the 
cold  policy  of  the  conqueror  refused  them  passage,  and 
they  perished  between  the  trenches  and  the  walls.  In 
the  hour  of  their  agony  women  gave  birth  to  infants,  but 
even  the  new-born  babes  which  were  drawn  up  in  baskets 
to  receive  baptism  were  lowered  again  to  die  on  their 
mothers'  breasts.  It  was  little  better  within  the  town 
itself.  As  winter  drew  on  one-half  of  the  population 
wasted  away.  "  War,"  said  the  terrible  King,  "  has  three 
handmaidens  ever  waiting  on  her,  Fire,  Blood,  and  Famine, 
and  I  have  chosen  the  meekest  maid  of  the  three."  But 
his  demand  of  unconditional  surrender  nerved  the  citizens 
to  a  resolve  of  despair ;  they  determined  to  fire  the  city 
and  fling  themselves  in  a  mass  on  the  English  lines  ;  and 
Henry,  fearful  lest  his  prize  should  escape  him  at  the  last, 
was  driven  to  offer  terms.  Those  who  rejected  a  foreign 
yoke  were  suffered  to  leave  the  city,  but  his  vengeance 
reserved  its  victim  in  Alan  Blanchard,  and  the  brave 
patriot  was  at  Henry's  orders  put  to  death  in  cold  blood. 

A  few  sieges  completed  the  reduction  of  Normandy. 
The  King's  designs  were  still  limited  to  the  acquisition  of 
that  province  ;  and  pausing  in  his  career  of  conquest,  he 
strove  to  win  its  loyalty  by  a  remission  of  taxation  and  a 
redress  of  grievances,  and  to  seal  its  possession  by  a  formal 
peace  with  the  French  Crown.  The  conferences  however 
which  were  held  for  this  purpose  at  Pontoise  in  1419  failed 
through  the  temporary  reconciliation  of  the  French  factions, 
while  the  length  and  expense  of  the  war  began  to  rouse 
remonstrance  and  discontent  at  home.  The  King's  diffi- 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  545 

culties  were  at  their  height  when  the  assassination  of  John  CHAV.  V. 
of  Burgundy  at  Montereau  in  the  very  presence  of  the  <n^ 
Dauphin  with  whom  he  had  come  to  hold  conference  Lancaster 
rekindled  the  fires  of  civil  strife.  The  whole  Burgundian  1399- 
party  with  the  new  Duke  of  Burgundy,  Philip  the  Good,  1^?2° 
at  its  head  flung  itself  in  a  wild  thirst  for  revenge  into 
Henry's  hands.  The  mad  King,  Charles  the  Sixth,  with 
his  Queen  and  daughters  were  in  Philip's  power ;  and  in 
his  resolve  to  exclude  the  Dauphin  from  the  throne  the 
Duke  stooped  to  buy  English  aid  by  giving  Catharine,  the 
eldest  of  the  French  princesses,  in  marriage  to  Henry,  by 
conferring  on  him  the  Eegency  during  the  life  of  Charles, 
and  recognizing  his  succession  to  the  crown  at  that  sove- 
reign's death.  A  treaty  which  embodied  these  terms  was 
solemnly  ratified  by  Charles  himself  in  a  conference  at 
Troyes  in  May  1420 ;  and  Henry,  who  in  his  new  capacity 
of  Eegent  undertook  to  conquer  in  the  name  of  his  father- 
in-law  the  territory  held  by  the  Dauphin,  reduced  the 
towns  of  the  Upper  Seine  and  at  Christmas  entered  Paris 
in  triumph  side  by  side  with  the  King.  The  States-General 
of  the  realm  were  solemnly  convened  to  the  capital ;  and 
strange  as  the  provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  Troyes  must 
have  seemed  they  were  confirmed  without  a  murmur. 
Henry  was  formally  recognized  as  the  future  sovereign  of 
France.  A  defeat  of  his  brother  Clarence  at  Bauge  in 
Aivjou  in  the  spring  of  1421  called  him  back  to  the  war. 
His  re-appearance  in  the  field  was  marked  by  the  capture 
of  Dreux,  and  a  repulse  before  Orleans  was  redeemed  in 
the  summer  of  1422  by  his  success  in  the  long  and  obstinate 
siege  of  Meaux.  At  no  time  had  the  fortunes  of  Henry 
reached  a  higher  pitch  than  at  the  moment  when  he  felt 
the  touch  of  death.  In  the  month  which  followed  the 
surrender  of  Meaux  he  fell  ill  at  Corbeuil ;  the  rapidity  of 
his  disease  baffled  the  skill  of  the  physicians ;  and  at  the 
close  of  August,  with  a  strangely  characteristic  regret  that 
he  had  not  lived  to  achieve  the  conquest  of  Jerusalem,  tho 
great  Conqueror  passed  away. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 
THE  WARS  OF  THE  ROSES. 

1422—1461. 
Plans  of  AT    the    moment   when   death    so   suddenly   stayed   his 

•j-J-  TT- 

wry  v.  course  the  greatness  of  Henry  the  Fifth  had  reached  its 
highest  point.  In  England  his  victories  had  hushed  the 
last  murmurs  of  disaffection.  The  death  of  the  Earl  of 
Cambridge,  the  childhood  of  his  son,  removed  all  danger 
from  the  claims  of  the  house  of  York.  The  ruin  of 
Lord  Cobhain,  the  formal  condemnation  of  Wyclif's  doc- 
trines in  the  Council  of  Constance,  broke  the  political  and 
the  religious  strength  of  Lollardry.  Henry  had  won  the 
Church  by  his  orthodoxy,  the  nobles  by  his  warlike  prowess, 
the  whole  people  by  his  revival  of  the  glories  of  Cregy 
and  Poitiers.  In  France  his  cool  policy  had  transformed 
him  from  a  foreign  conqueror  into  a  legal  heir  to  the  crown. 
The  King  was  in  his  hands,  the  Queen  devoted  to  his 
cause,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  was  his  ally,  his  title  of 
Regent  and  of  successor  to  the  throne  rested  on  the  formal 
recognition  of  the  estates  of  the  realm.  Although  south- 
ern France  still  clung  to  the  Dauphin,  the  progress  of 
Henry  to  the  very  moment  of  his  death  promised  a  speedy 
mastery  of  the  whole  country.  His  European  position  was 
a  commanding  one.  Lord  of  the  two  great  western  king- 
doms, he  was  linked  by  close  ties  of  blood  with  the  royal 
lines  of  Portugal  and  Castille;  and  his  restless  activity 
showed  itself  in  his  efforts  to  procure  the  adoption  of  his 


BOOK  IV.]        THE  PARLIAMENT.    1307—1461. 


547 


John  of 
Bedford. 


brother  John  as  her  successor  by  the  Queen  of  Naples  and  CHAP.  VI. 
in  the  marriage  of  a  younger  brother,  Humphrey,  with    TheWars 
Jacqueline,  the  Countess  of  Holland  and  Hainault.  Dreams      Roses6 
of  a  vaster  enterprize  filled  the  soul  of  the  great  conqueror     1422- 
himself ;  he  loved  to  read  the  story  of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon     1^f}- 
and  cherished  the  hope  of  a  crusade  which  should   beat 
back  the  Ottoman  and  again  rescue  the  Holy  Land  from 
heathen  hands.      Such  a  crusade  might  still  have  saved 
Constantinople,  and  averted  from  Europe  the  danger  which 
threatened  it  through  the  century  that  followed  the  fall  of 
the  imperial  city.     Nor  was  the  enterprize  a  dream  in  the 
hands  of  the  cool,  practical  warrior  and  ruler  of  whom  a 
contemporary  could  say  "  he  transacts  all  his  affairs  him- 
self,  he   considers  well  before  he  undertakes  them,  he 
never  does  anything  fruitlessly." 

But  the  hopes  of  far  off  conquests  found  a  sudden  close 
in  Henry's  death.  His  son,  Henry  the  Sixth  of  England, 
was  a  child  of  but  nine  months  old :  and  though  he  was 
peacefully  recognized  as  King  in  his  English  realm  and  as 
heir  to  the  throne  in  the  realm  of  France  his  position 
was  a  very  different  one  from  his  father's.  The  death  of 
King  Charles  indeed,  two  months  after  that  of  his  son- 
in-law,  did  little  to  weaken  it ;  and  at  first  nothing  seemed 
lost.  The  Dauphin  at  once  proclaimed  himself  Charles 
the  Seventh  of  France :  but  Henry  was  owned  as  Sove- 
reign over  the  whole  of  the  territory  which  Charles  had 
actually  ruled;  and  the  incursions  which  the  partizans 
of  Charles,  now  reinforced  by  Lombard  soldiers  from 
the  Milanese  and  by  four  thousand  Scots  under  the  Earl 
of  Douglas,  made  with  fresh  vigour  across  the  Loire  were 
easily  repulsed  by  Duke  John  of  Bedford,  the  late  King's 
brother,  who  had  been  named  in  his  will  Regent  of 
France.  In  genius  for  war  as  in  political  capacity  John 
was  hardly  inferior  to  Henry  himself.  Drawing  closer  his 
alliance  with  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  by  marriage  with 
that  prince's  sister,  and  holding  that  of  Brittany  by  a 
patient  diplomacy,  he  completed  the  conquest  of  Northern 


548  HISTOEY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  VI.  France,   secured  his  communications  with  Normandy  by 

ThtTwars    the  capture    of  Meulan,   and   made  himself    master   of 

Roses!      the  line  °f  the   Yonne  by    a  victory  near  Auxerre.     In 

1422-     1424  the  Constable  of  Buchan  pushed  from  the  Loire  to 

l^}'     the   very  borders  of  Normandy    to  arrest    his    progress, 

and    attacked   the   English   army   at   Verneuil.      But   a 

repulse  hardly  less  disastrous  than  that  of  Agincourt  left 

a  third   of  the  French  knighthood  on  the  field :  and  the 

Kegent  was  preparing  to  cross  the  Loire  for  a  final  struggle 

with  "  the  King  of  Bourges "  as  the  English  in  mockery 

called  Charles  the  Seventh  when  his  career  of  victory  was 

broken  by  troubles  at  home. 

Humphrey      In  England  the  Lancastrian  throne  was  still  too  newly 

of  Glou-    established  to  remain  unshaken  by  the  succession  of  a 
ccster. 

child  of  nine  months  old.     Nor  was  the  younger  brother  of 

Henry  the  Fifth,  Duke  Humphrey  of  Gloucester,  whom 
the  late  King's  will  named  as  Eegent  of  the  realm,  a  man 
of  the  same  noble  temper  as  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  In- 
tellectually the  figure  of  Humphrey  is  one  of  extreme 
interest,  for  he  is  the  first  Englishman  in  whom  we  can 
trace  the  faint  influence  of  that  revival  of  knowledge 
which  was  to  bring  about  the  coming  renascence  of  the 
western  world.  Humphrey  was  not  merely  a  patron  of  poets 
and  men  of  letters,  of  Lydgate  and  William  of  Worcester 
and  Abbot  Whethamstede  of  St.  Alban's,  as  his  brother 
and  other  princes  of  the  day  had  been,  but  his  patronage 
seems  to  have  sprung  from  a  genuine  interest  in  learning 
itself.  He  was  a  zealous  collector  of  books  and  was  able 
to  bequeath  to  the  University  of  Oxford  a  library  of  a 
hundred  and  thirty  volumes.  A  gift  of  books  indeed  was 
a  passport  to  his  favour,  and  before  the  title  of  each 
volume  he  possessed  the  Duke  wrote  words  which  ex- 
pressed his  love  of  them,  "  moun  bien  mondain,"  "  my 
worldly  goods  ! "  Lydgate  tells  us  how  "  notwithstanding 
his  state  and  dignyte  his  corage  never  doth  appalle  to 
studie  in  books  of  antiquitie."  His  studies  drew  him  to 
the  revival  of  classic  learning  which  was  becoming  a 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


549 


passion  across  the  Alps.  One  wandering  scholar  from 
Forli,  who  took  the  pompous  name  of  Titus  Livius  and 
who  wrote  at  his  request  the  biography  of  Henry  the  Fifth, 
Humphrey  made  his  court  poet  and  orator.  The  Duke 
probably  aided  Poggio  Bracciolini  in  his  search  for  classical 
manuscripts  when  he  visited  England  in  1420.  Leonardo 
Aretino,  one  of  the  scholars  who  gathered  about  Cosmo  de 
Medici,  dedicated  to  him  a  translation  of  the  Politics  of 
Aristotle,  and  when  another  Italian  scholar  sent  him  a  fra^- 

7  O 

ment  of  a  translation  of  Plato's  Republic  the  Duke  wrote  to 
beg  him  to  send  the  rest.  But  with  its  love  of  learning 

o  o 

Humphrey  combined  the  restlessness,  the  immorality,  the 
selfish,  boundless  ambition  which  characterized  the  age  of 
the  Renascence.  His  life  was  sullied  by  sensual  excesses, 
his  greed  of  power  shook  his  nephew's  throne.  So  utterly 
was  he  already  distrusted  that  the  late  King's  nomination 
of  him  as  Regent  was  set  aside  by  the  royal  Council  and 
he  was  suffered  only  to  preside  at  its  deliberations  with  the 
nominal  title  of  Protector  during  Bedford's  absence.  The 
real  direction  of  affairs  fell  into  the  hands  of  his  uncle, 
Henry  Beaufort,  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  a  legitimated 
son  of  John  of  Gaunt  by  his  mistress  Catharine  Swynford. 
Two  years  of  useless  opposition  disgusted  the  Duke  with 
this  nominal  Protectorship,  and  in  1424  he  left  the  realm 
to  push  his  fortunes  in  the  Netherlands.  Jacqueline,  the 
daughter  and  heiress  of  William,  Count  of  Holland  and 
Hainault,  had  originally  wedded  John,  Duke  of  Brabant; 
but  after  a  few  years  of  strife  she  had  procured  a  divorce 
from  one  of  the  three  claimants  who  now  disputed  the 
Papacy,  and  at  the  close  of  Henry  the  Fifth's  reign  she 
had  sought  shelter  in  England.  At  his  brother's  death  the 
Duke  of  Gloucester  avowed  his  marriage  with  her  and 
adopted  her  claims  as  his  own.  To  support  them  in  arms 
however  was  to  alienate  Philip  of  Burgundy,  who  was 
already  looking  forward  to  the  inheritance  of  his  childless 
nephew,  the  Duke  of  Brabant ;  and  as  the  alliance  with 
Burgundy  was  the  main  strength  of  the  English  cause  in 

YOL.  I.— 36 


The  Wars 
of  the 
hoses. 

1422- 
1461. 


550 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1422- 
1461. 


CHAP.  VI.  France,  neither  Bedford,  who  had  shown  his  sense  of  its 
The~Wars  value  by  a  marriage  with  the  Duke's  sister,  nor  the  Eng- 
Koses5.  lish  council  were  likely  to  support  measures  which  would 
imperil  or  weaken  it.  Such  considerations  however  had 
little  weight  with  Humphrey ;  and  in  October  1424  he 
set  sail  for  Calais  without  their  knowledge  with  a  body 
of  five  thousand  men.  In  a  few  months  he  succeeded 
in  restoring  Hainault  to  Jacqueline,  and  Philip  at  once 
grew  lukewarm  in  his  adherence  to  the  English  cause. 
Though  Bedford's  efforts  prevented  any  final  break,  the 
Duke  withdrew  his  forces  from  France  to  aid  John  of 
Brabant  in  the  recovery  of  Hainault  and  Holland. 
Gloucester  challenged  Philip  to  decide  their  claims  by 
single  combat.  But  the  enterprize  was  abandoned  as 
hastily  as  it  had  been  begun.  The  Duke  of  Gloucester 
was  already  disgusted  with  Jacqueline  and  enamoured  of 
a  lady  in  her  suite,  Eleanor,  the  daughter  of  Lord 
Cobhani;  and  in  the  summer  of  1425  he  suddenly  returned 
with  her  to  England  and  left  his  wife  to  defend  herself  as 
she  might. 

What  really  called  him  back  was  more  than  his  passion 
for  Eleanor  Cobham  or  the  natural  versatility  of  his 
temper;  it  was  the  advance  of  a  rival  in  England  to 
further  power  over  the  realm.  This  was  his  uncle.  Henry 
Beaufort,  Bishop  of  Winchester.  The  bishop  had  already 
played  a  leading  political  part.  He  was  charged  with  having 
spurred  Henry  the  Fifth  to  the  ambitious  demands  of  power 
which  he  made  during  his  father's  lifetime ;  he  became 
chancellor  on  his  accession  ;  and  at  his  death  the  king  left 
him  guardian  of  the  person  of  his  boy.  He  looked  on 
Gloucester's  ambition  as  a  danger  to  his  charge,  withstood 
his  recognition  as  Eegent,  and  remained  at  the  head  of  the 
Council  that  reduced  his  office  of  Protector  to  a  name. 
The  Duke's  absence  in  Hainault  gave  fresh  strength  to  his 
opponent :  and  the  nomination  of  the  Bishop  to  the 
Chancellorship  marked  him  out  as  the  virtual  ruler  of 
the  realm.  On  the  news  of  this  appointment  Gloucester 


Henry 
Beaufort. 


IV/j 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


551 


1422- 
1461 


Siege  of 
Orleans. 


hurried  back  to  accept  what  he  looked  on  as  a  challenge 
to  open  strife.  The  Londoners  rose  in  his  name  to  attack 
Beaufort's  palace  in  Southwark,  and  at  the  close  of  1425 
Bedford  had  to  quit  his  work  in  France  to  appease  the 
strife.  In  the  following  year  Gloucester  laid  a  formal 
bill  of  accusation  against  the  bishop  before  the  Parliament, 
but  its  rejection  forced  him  to  a  show  of  reconciliation, 
and  Bedford  was  able  to  return  to  France.  Hardly  was 
he  gone  however  when  the  quarrel  began  anew.  Hum- 
phrey found  a  fresh  weapon  against  Beaufort  in  his 
acceptance  of  the  dignity  of  a  Cardinal  and  of  a  Papal 
Legate  in  England ;  and  the  jealousy  which  this  step 
aroused  drove  the  Bishop  to  withdraw  for  a  while  from 
the  Council  and  to  give  place  to  his  unscrupulous  opponent. 
Beaufort  possessed  an  administrative  ability,  the  loss  of 
which  was  a  heavy  blow  to  the  struggling  Regent  over  sea, 
where  Humphrey's  restless  ambition  had  already  paralyzed 
Bedford's  efforts.  Much  of  his  strength  rested  on  his  Bur- 
gundian  ally,  and  the  force  of  Burgundy  was  drawn  to  other 
quarters.  Though  Hainault  had  been  easily  won  back  on 
Gloucester's  retreat  and  Jacqueline  taken  prisoner,  her 
escape  from  prison  enabled  her  to  hold  Holland  for  three 
years  against  the  forces  of  the  Duke  of  Brabant  and  after 
his  death  against  those  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  to  whom 
he  bequeathed  his  dominions.  The  political  strife  in  England 
itself  was  still  more  fatal  in  diverting  the  supplies  of  men 
and  money  which  were  needful  for  a  vigorous  prosecution 
of  the  war.  To  maintain  even  the  handful  of  forces  left  to 
him  Bedford  was  driven  to  have  recourse  to  mere  forays 
which  did  little  but  increase  the  general  miseiy.  The 
north  of  France  indeed  was  being  fast  reduced  to  a  desert 
by  the  bands  of  marauders  which  traversed  it.  The  hus- 
bandmen fled  for  refuge  to  the  towns  till  these  in  fear 
of  famine  shut  their  gates  against  them.  Then  in  their 
despair  they  threw  themselves  into  the  woods  and  became 
brigands  in  their  turn.  So  terrible  was  the  devastation 
that  two  hostile  bodies  of  troops  failed  at  one  time  even  to 


552 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.         BOOK 


CHAP.  VI.  find  one  another  in  the  desolate  Beauce.     Misery  and  dis- 
TheWars    ease  killed  a  hundred  thousand  people  in  Paris  alone.     At 


of  the 

Hoses. 


1422 
1461. 


Jeanne 
Dare. 


last  the  cessation  of  the  war  in  Holland  and  the  temporary 
lull  of  strife  in  England  enabled  the  Begent  to  take  up 
again  his  long  interrupted  advance  upon  the  South. 
Orleans  was  the  key  to  the  Loire  ;  and  its  reduction  would 
throw  open  Bourges  where  Charles  held  his  court.  Bedford's 
resources  indeed  were  still  inadequate  for  such  a  siege ; 
and  though  the  arrival  of  reinforcements  from  England 
under  the  Earl  of  Salisbury  enabled  him  to  invest  it  in 
October  1428  with  ten  thousand  men,  the  fact  that  so  small 
a  force  could  undertake  the  siege  of  such  a  town  as  Orleans 
shows  at  once  the  exhaustion  of  England  and  the  terror 
which  still  hung  over  France.  As  the  siege  went  on  how- 
ever even  these  numbers  were  reduced.  A  new  fit  of 
jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  brought 
about  a  recall  of  his  soldiers  from  the  siege,  and  after  their 
withdrawal  only  three  thousand  Englishmen  remained  in 
the  trenches.  But  the  long  series  of  English  victories  had 
so  demoralized  the  French  soldiery  that  in  February  1429 
a  mere  detachment  of  archers  under  Sir  John  Fastolfe 
repulsed  a  whole  army  in  what  was  called  '  the  Battle  of 
the  Herrings'  from  the  convoy  of  provisions  which  the 
victors  brought  in  triumph  into  the  camp  before  Orleans. 
Though  the  town  swarmed  with  men-at-arms  not  a  single 
sally  was  ventured  on  through  the  six  months'  siege,  and 
Charles  the  Seventh  did  nothing  for  its  aid  but  shut  him- 
self up  in  Chinon  and  weep  helplessly. 

But  the  success  of  this  handful  of  besiegers  rested 
wholly  on  the  spell  of  terror  which  had  been  cast  over 
France,  and  at  this  moment  the  appearance  of  a  peasant 
maiden  broke  the  spell.  Jeanne  Dare  was  the  child  of  a 
labourer  of  Domremy,  a  little  village  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Vaucouleurs  on  the  borders  of  Lorraine  and  Champagne. 
Just  without  the  cottage  where  she  was  born  began 
the  great  woods  of  the  Vosges  where  the  children  of 
Domremy  drank  in  poetry  and  legend  from  fairy  ring  and 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  553 

haunted  well,  hung  their  flower  garlands  on  the   sacred  CHAP.  VI. 

trees,  and  sang  songs  to  the  "  good  people  "  who  might  not    The~Wars 

drink  of  the  fountain  because  of  their  sins.     Jeanne  loved      Roses6 

the  forest ;  its  birds  and  beasts  came  lovingly  to  her  at  her      i^a_ 

childish  call.     But  at  home  men  saw  nothing  in  her  but     14gl- 

"  a  good  girl,  simple  and  pleasant  in  her  ways,"  spinning 

and  sewing  by  her  mother's  side  while  the  other  girls  went 

to  the  fields,  tender  to  the  poor  and  sick,  fond  of  church, 

and  listening  to  the  church-bell  with  a  dreamy  passion  of 

delight  which  never  left  her.     This  quiet  life  was  broken 

by  the  storm  of  war  as  it  at  last  came  home  to  Domremy. 

As  the  outcasts  and  wounded  passed  by  the  little  village. 

the  young  peasant  girl  gave   them  her  bed  and  nursed 

them  in  their  sickness.     Her  whole  nature  summed  itself 

up  in  one  absorbing  passion :  she  "  had  pity,"  to  use  the 

phrase  for  ever  on  her  lip,  "  on  the  fair  realm  of  Trance." 

As  her  passion  grew  she  recalled  old  prophecies  that  a  maid 

from  the  Lorraine  border  should  save  the  land ;  she  saw 

visions ;  St.  Michael  appeared  to  her  in  a  flood  of  blinding 

light,  and  bade  her  go  to  the  help  of  the  King  and  restore 

to  him  his  realm.     "  Messire,"  answered  the  girl,  "I  am 

but  a  poor  maiden ;  I  know  not  how  to  ride  to  the  wars,  or 

to  lead  men-at-arms."     The  archangel  returned  to  give  her 

courage,  and  to  tell  her  of  "  the  pity  "  that  there  was  in 

heaven  for  the  fair  realm  of  France.     The  girl  wept  and 

longed  that  the  angels  who  appeared  to  her  would  carry 

her  away,  but  her  mission  was  clear.     It  was  in  vain  that 

her  father  when  he  heard  her  purpose  swore  to  drown  her 

ere  she  should  go  to  the  field  with  men-at-arms.    It  was  in 

vain  that  the  priest,  the  wise  people  of  the  village,  the 

captain  of  Vaucouleurs,  doubted  and  refused  to  aid  her. 

"  I  must  go  to  the  King,"  persisted  the  peasant  girl,  "  even 

if  I  wear  my  limbs  to  the  very  knees."     "  I  had  far  rather 

rest  and  spin  by  my  mother's  side,"  she  pleaded  with  a 

touching   pathos,  "for  this   is  no  work  of  my   choosing, 

but  I  must  go  and  do  it,  for  my  Lord  wills  it."     "  And 

who,"  they  asked,  "  is  your  Lord  ? "    "  He  is  God."    Words 


554 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1422- 
1461. 


Belief  of 
Orleans. 


such  as  these  touched  the  rough  captain  at  last :  he  took 
Jeanne  by  the  hand  and  swore  to  lead  her  to  the  King. 
She  reached  Chinon  in  the  opening  of  March,  but  here  too 
she  found  hesitation  and  doubt.  The  theologians  proved 
from  their  books  that  they  ought  not  to  believe  her.  "  There 
is  more  in  God's  book  than  in  yours,"  Jeanne  answered 
simply.  At  last  Charles  himself  received  her  in  the 
midst  of  a  throng  of  nobles  and  soldiers.  "  Gentle  Dauphin," 
said  the  girl,  "  my  name  is  Jeanne  the  Maid.  The  Heavenly 
King  sends  me  to  tell  you  that  you  shall  be  anointed  and 
crowned  in  the  town  of  Eheirns,  and  you  shall  be  lieu- 
tenant of  the  Heavenly  King  who  is  the  King  of  France." 
Orleans  had  already  been  driven  by  famine  to  offers  of 
surrender  when  Jeanne  appeared  in  the  French  court,  and 
a  force  was  gathering  under  the  Count  of  Duuois  at  Blois 
for  a  final  effort  at  its  relief.  It  was  at  the  head  of  this 
force  that  Jeanne  placed  herself.  The  girl  was  in  her 
eighteenth  year,  tall,  finely  formed,  with  all  the  vigour  and 
activity  of  her  peasant  rearing,  able  to  stay  from  dawn  to 
nightfall  on  horseback  without  meat  or  drink.  As  she 
mounted  her  charger,  clad  in  white  armour  from,  head  to 
foot,  with  a  great  white  banner  studded  with  fleur-de-lys 
waving  over  her  head,  she  seemed  "  a  thing  wholly  divine, 
whether  to  see  or  hear."  The  ten  thousand  men-at-arms 
who  followed  her  from  Blois,  rough  plunderers  whose  only 
prayer  was  that  of  La  Hire,  "  Sire  Dieu,  I  pray  you  to  do 
for  La  Hire  what  La  Hire  would  do  for  you,  were  you 
captain-at-arms  and  he  God,"  left  off  their  oaths  and  foul 
living  at  her  word  and  gathered  round  the  altars  on  their 
march.  Her  shrewd  peasant  humour  helped  her  to  manage 
the  wild  soldiery,  and  her  followers  laughed  over  their 
camp-fires  at  an  old  warrior  who  had  been  so  puzzled  by 
her  prohibition  of  oaths  that  she  suffered  him  still  to 
swear  by  his  baton.  For  in  the  midst  of  her  enthusiasm  her 
good  sense  never  left  her.  The  people  crowded  round  her 
as  she  rode  along,  praying  her  to  work  miracles,  and  bring- 
ing crosses  and  chaplets  to  be  blest  by  her  touch.  "  Touch 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


555 


them   yourself,"    she 
"your  touch  will  be 


an 

good 


old    Dame  Margaret ;  CHAP.  VI. 
as  mine."     But  her   TheWars 


said   to 

just  as 

faith  in  her  mission  remained  as  firm  as  ever.  "  The 
Maid  prays  and  requires  you,"  she  wrote  to  Bedford, 
"  to  work  no  more  distraction  in  France  but  to  come  in 
her  company  to  rescue  the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  the  Turk." 
"  I  bring  you,"  she  told  Dunois  when  he  sallied  out  of 
Orleans  to  meet  her  after  her  two  days'  march  from  Blois, 
"  1  bring  you  the  best  aid  ever  sent  to  any  one,  the  aid  of 
the  King  of  Heaven."  The  besiegers  looked  on  overawed 
as  she  entered  Orleans  and,  riding  round  the  walls,  bade 
the  people  shake  off  their  fear  of  the  forts  which  sur- 
rounded them.  Her  enthusiasm  drove  the  hesitating 
generals  to  engage  the  handful  of  besiegers,  and  the  enor- 
mous disproportion  of  forces  at  once  made  itself  felt. 
Fort  after  fort  was  taken  till  only  the  strongest  remained, 
and  then  the  council  of  war  resolved  to  adjourn  the  attack. 
"  You  have  taken  your  counsel,"  replied  Jeanne,  "  and  I 
take  mine."  Placing  herself  at  the  head  ot  the  men-at- 
arms,  she  ordered  the  gates  to  be  thrown  open,  and  led  them 
agninst  the  fort.  Fow  as  they  were,  the  English  fought 
desperately,  and  the  Maid,  who  had  fallen  wounded  while 
endeavouring  to  scale  its"  walls,  was  borne  into  a  vineyard, 
while  Dunois  sounded  the  retreat.  "  Wait  a  while  !  '  the 
girl  imperiously  pleaded,  "  eat  and  drink )  so  soon  as  my 
standard  touches  the  wall  you  shall  enter  the  fort."  It 
touched,  and  the  assailants  burst  in.  On  the  next  day  the 
siege  was  abandoned,  and  on  the  eighth  of  May  the  force 
which  had  conducted  it  withdrew  in  good  order  to  the 
north. 

In  the  midst  of  her  triumph  Jeanne  still  remained  the 
pure,  tender-hearted  peasant  girl  of  the  Yosges.  Her  first 
visit  as  she  entered  Orleans  was  to  the  great  church,  and 
there,  as  she  knelt  at  mass,  she  wept  in  such  a  passion  of 
devotion  that  "  all  the  people  wept  with  her."  Her  tears 
burst  forth  afresh  at  her  first  sight  of  bloodshed  and  of  the 
corpses  strewn  over  the  battle-field.  She  grew  frightened 


of  the 

Hoses. 


1422- 
1461. 


Corona- 
tion of 
Charles 


556 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  VI. 

The  Wars 
of  the 
Hoses. 

1422- 
1461, 


Capture 
of  Jeanne. 


at  her  first  wound,  and  only  threw  off  the  touch  of 
womanly  fear  when  she  heard  the  signal  for  retreat.  Yet 
more  womanly  was  the  purity  with  which  she  passed 
through  the  brutal  warriors  of  a  medieval  camp.  It  was 
her  care  for  her  honour  that  led  her  to  clothe  herself  in  a 
soldier's  dress.  She  wept  hot  tears  when  told  of  the  foul 
taunts  of  the  English,  and  called  passionately  on  God  to 
witness  her  chastity.  "  Yield  thee,  yield  thee,  Glasdale," 
she  cried  to  the  English  warrior  whose  insults  had  been 
foulest  as  he  fell  wounded  at  her  feet,  "  you  called  me 
harlot !  I  have  great  pity  on  your  soul."  But  all  thought 
of  herself  was  lost  in  the  thought  of  her  mission.  It  was 
in  vain  that  the  French  generals  strove  to  remain  on  the 
Loire.  Jeanne  was  resolute  to  complete  her  task,  and 
while  the  English  remained  panic-stricken  around  Paris  she 
brought  Charles  to  march  upon  Eheims,  the  old  crowning- 
place  of  the  Kings  of  France.  Troyes  and  Chalons  sub- 
mitted as  she  reached  them,  Eheims  drove  out  the  English 
garrison  and  threw  open  her  gates  to  the  king. 

With  his  coronation  the  Maid  felt  her  errand  to  be  over. 
"  0  gentle  King,  the  pleasure  of  God  is  done,"  she  cried, 
as  she  flung  herself  at  the  feet  of  Charles  and  asked  leave 
to  go  home.  "  Would  it  were  His  good  will,"  she  pleaded 
with  the  Archbishop  as  he  forced  her  to  remain,  "  that  I 
might  go  and  keep  sheep  once  more  with  my  sisters  and 
my  brothers :  they  would  be  so  glad  to  see  me  again  !  " 
But  the  policy  of  the  French  Court  detained  her  while 
the  cities  of  the  North  of  France  opened  their  gates  to  the 
newly-consecrated  King.  Bedford  however,  who  had  been 
left  without  money  or  men,  had  now  received  reinforce- 
ments. Excluded  as  Cardinal  Beaufort  had  been  from  the 
Council  by  Gloucester's  intrigues,  he  poured  his  wealth 
without  stint  into  the  exhausted  treasury  till  his  loans  to 
the  Crown  reached  the  sum  of  half-a-million ;  and  at  this 
crisis  he  unscrupulously  diverted  an  army  which  he  had 
levied  at  his  own  cost  for  a  crusade  against  the  Hussites  in 
Bohemia  to  his  nephew's  aid.  The  tide  of  success  turned 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


557 


1422- 
1461. 


again.     Charles,  after  a  repulse  before  the  walls  of  Paris,  CHAP.  VI. 
fell  back  behind  the  Loire ;  while  the  towns  on  the  Oise    TheWars 
submitted  anew  to  the  Duke  of  .  Burgundy,  whose  more      loses6 
active  aid  Bedford  had  bought  by  the  cession  of  Champagne. 
In  the  struggle  against  Duke  Philip  Jeanne  fought  %vith 
her  usual  bravery  but  with  the  fatal  consciousness  that  her 
mission  was  at  an  end,  and  during  the  defence  of  Compiegne 
in  the  May  of  1430  she  fell  into  the  power  of  the  Bastard 
of  Yendorne,  to  be  sold  by  her  captor  into  the  hands  of  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy  and  by  the  Duke  into  the  hands  of  the 
English.      To  the  English  her  triumphs  were  victories  of 
sorcery,  and  after  a  year's  imprisonment  she  was  brought  to 
trial  on  a  charge  of  heresy  before  an  ecclesiastical  court 
with  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais  at  its  head. 

Throughout  the  long  process  whiclf  followed  every  art 
was  used  to  entangle  'her  in  her  talk.  But  the  simple 
shrewdness  of  the  peasant  girl  foiled  the  efforts  of  her 
judges.  "  Do  you  believe,"  they  asked,  "  that  you  are  in  a 
state  of  grace  ?  "  "  If  I  am  not,"  she  replied,  "  God  will 
put  me  in  it.  If  I  am,  God  will  keep  me  in  it."  Her 
capture,  they  argued,  showed  that  God  had  for- 
saken her.  "  Since  it  has  pleased  God  that  I  should  be 
taken,"  she  answered  meekly,  "  it  is  for  the  best."  "  Will 
you  submit,"  they  demanded  at  last,  "  to  the  judgement  of 
the  Church  Militant?"  "I  have  come  to  the  King  of 
France,"  Jeanne  replied,  "by  commission  from  God  and 
from  the  Church  Triumphant  above  :  to  that  Church  I 
submit."  "  I  had  far  rather  die,"  she  ended  passionately, 
"  than  renounce  what  I  have  done  by  my  Lord's  command." 
They  deprived  her  of  mass.  "  Our  Lord  can  make  me 
hear  it  without  your  aid,"  she  said,  weeping.  "  Do  your 
voices,"  asked  the  judges,  "  forbid  you  to  submit  to  the 
Church  and  the  Pope  ? "  "  Ah,  no !  our  Lord  first  served." 
Sick,  and  deprived  of  all  religious  aid,  it  was  no  wonder 
that  as  the  long  trial  dragged  on  and  question  followed 
question  Jeanne's  firmness  wavered.  On  the  charge  of 
sorcery  and  diabolical  possession  she  still  appealed  firmly 


558 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1422 
1461. 


to  God.  "  I  hold  to  my  Judge,"  she  said,  as  her  earthly 
judges  gave  sentence  against  her,  "  to  the  King  of  Heaven 
and  Earth.  God  has  always  been  my  Lord  in  all  that  I 
have  done.  The  devil  has  never  had  power  over  me."  It 
was  only  with  a  view  to  be  delivered  from  the  military 
prison  and  transferred  to  the  prisons  of  the  Church  that 
she  consented  to  a  formal  abjuration  of  heresy.  She  feared 
in  fact  among  the  soldiery  'those  outrages  to  her  honour,  to 
guard  against  which  she  had  from  the  first  assumed  the 
dress  of  a  man.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Church  her  dress  was 
a  crime  and  she  abandoned  it ;  but  a  renewed  affront  forced 
her  to  resume  the  one  safeguard  left  her,  and  the  return  to 
it  was  treated  as  a  relapse  into  heresy  which  doomed  her 
to  death.  At  the  close  of  May,  1431,  a  great  pile  was 
raised  in  the  market-place  of  Eouen  where  her  statue 
stands  now.  Even  the  brutal  soldiers  who  snatched  the 
hated  "  witch  "  from  the  hands  of  the  clergy  and  hurried 
her  to  her  doom  were  hushed  as  she  reached  the  stake. 
One  indeed  passed  to  her  a  rough  cross  he  had  made  from  a 
stick  he  held,  and  she  clasped  it  to  her  bosom.  As  her 
eyes  ranged  over  the  city  from  the  lofty  scaffold  she  was 
heard  to  murmur,  "  Oh  Eouen,  Rouen,  I  have  great  fear  lest 
you  suffer  for  my  death."  "  Yes !  my  voices  were  of  God  ! " 
she  suddenly  cried  as  the  last  moment  came ;  "  they  have 
never  deceived  me ! "  Soon  the  flames  reached  her,  the 
girl's  head  sank  on  her  breast,  there  was  one  cry  of  "  Jesus!" 
— "  We  are  lost,"  an  English  soldier  muttered  as  the 
crowd  broke  up  ;  "  we  have  burned  a  Saint." 

The  English  cause  was  indeed  irretrievablv  lost.     In 

O  v 

spite  of  a  pompous  coronation  of  the  boy-king  Henry  at 
Paris  at  the  close  of  1431,  Bedford  with  the  cool  wisdom 
of  his  temper  seems  to  have  abandoned  from  this  time  all 
hope  of  permanently  retaining  France  and  to  have  fallen 
back  on  his  brother's  original  plan  of  securing  Normandy. 
Henry's  Court  was  established  for  a  year  at  Eouen,  a  uni- 
versity founded  at  Caen,  and  whatever  rapine  and  disorder 
might  be  permitted  elsewhere,  justice,  good  government, 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


559 


The  Wars 

of  the 
.tvoses. 

1422- 
1461. 


and  security  for  trade  were  steadily  maintained  through  the  CHAP.  VI. 
favoured  provinces.  At  home  Bedford  was  resolutely  backed 
by  Cardinal  Beaufort,  whose  services  to  the  state  as  well 
as  his  real  powers  had  at  last  succeeded  in  outweighing 
Duke  Humphrey's  opposition  arid  in  restoring  him  to  the 
head  of  the  royal  Council.  Beaufort's  diplomatic  ability 
was  seen  in  the  truces  he  wrung  from  Scotland,  and  in  his 
personal  efforts  to  prevent  the  impending  reconciliation  of 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy  with  the  French  King.  But  the 
death  of  the  duke's  sister,  who  was  the  wife  of  Bedford, 
severed  the  last  link  which  bound  Philip  to  the  English 
cause.  He  pressed  for  peace  :  and  conferences  for  this 
purpose  were  held  at  Arras  in  1435.  Their  failure  only 
served  him  as  a  pretext  for  concluding  a  formal  treaty 
with  Charles ;  and  his  desertion  was  followed  by  a  yet 
more  fatal  blow  to  the  English  cause  in  the  death  of 
Bedford.  The  loss  of  the  Regent  was  the  signal  for  the 
loss  of  Paris.  In  the  spring  of  1436  the  city  rose  sud- 
denly against  its  English  garrison  and  declared  for  King 
Charles.  Henry's  dominion  shrank  at  once  to  Xormandy 
and  the  outlying  fortresses  of  Picardy  and  Maine.  But 
reduced  as  they  were  to  a  mere  handful,  and  fronted  by  a 
whole  nation  in  arms,  the  English  soldiers  struggled  on 
with  as  desperate  a  bravery  as  in  their  days  of  triumph. 
Lord  Talbot,  the  most  daring  of  their  leaders,  forded  the 
Somme  with  the  water  up  to  his  chin  to  relieve  Crotoy, 
and  threw  his  men  across  the  Oise  in  the  face  of  a  French 
army  to  relieve  Pontoise. 

Bedford  found  for  the  moment  an  able  and  vigorous 
successor  in  the  Duke  of  York.  Richard  of  York  was  the 
son  of  the  Earl  of  Cambridge  who  had  been  beheaded  by 
Henry  the  Fifth  ;  his  mother  was  Anne,  the  heiress  of  the 
Mortimers  and  of  their  claim  to  the  English  crown  as 
representatives  of  the  third  son  of  Edward  the  Third, 
Lionel  of  Clarence.  It  was  to  assert  this  claim  on  his  son's 
behalf  that  the  Earl  embarked  in  the  fatal  plot  which  cost 
him  his  head.  But  his  death  left  Richard  a  mere  boy 


Richard 
of  York. 


560 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The  Wars 
of  the 
Roses. 

1422- 
1461. 


CHAP.  VI.  in  the  wardship  of  the  Crown,  and  for  years  to  come  all 
danger  from  his  pretensions  were  at  an  end.  Nor  did  the 
young  Duke  give  any  sign  of  a  desire  to  assert  them 
as  he  grew  to  manhood.  He  appeared  content  with  a 
lineage  and  wealth  which  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the 
English  baronage ;  for  he  had  inherited  from  his  uncle 
the  Dukedom  of  York,  his  wide  possessions  embraced 
the  estates  of  the  families  which  united  in  him,  the 
houses  of  York,  of  Clarence,  and  of  Mortimer,  and  his 
double  descent  from  Edward  the  Third,  if  it  did  no  more, 
set  him  near  to  the  Crown.  The  nobles  looked  up  to  him 
as  the  head  of  their  order,  and  his  political  position  recalled 
that  of  the  Lancastrian  Earls  at  an  earlier  time.  But  the 
position  of  Kiclmrd  was  as  yet  that  of  a  faithful  servant  of 
the  Crown ;  and  as  Regent  of  France  he  displayed  the 
abilities  both  of  a  statesman  and  of  a  general.  During  the 
brief  space  of  his  regency  the  tide  of  ill  fortune  was 
stemmed ;  and  towns  aiid  castles  were  recovered  along 
the  border. 

His  recall  after  a  twelvemonth's  success  is  the  first  in- 
dication of  the  jealousy  which  the  ruling  house  felt  of 
triumphs  gained  by  one  who  might  some  day  assert  his 
claim  to  the  throne.  Two  years  later,  in  1440,  the  Duke 
was  restored  to  his  post,  but  it  was  now  too  late  to  do 
more  than  stand  on  the  defensive,  and  all  York's  ability 
was  required  to  preserve  Normandy  and  Maine.  Men  and 
money  alike  came  scantily  from  England — where  the  Duke 
of  Gloucester,  freed  from  the  check  which  Bedford  had 
laid  on  him  while  he  lived,  was  again  stirring  against 
Beaufort  and  the  Council.  But  his  influence  had  been 
weakened  by  a  marriage  with  his  mistress,  Eleanor  Cob- 
ham,  and  in  1441  it  was  all  but  destroyed  by  an  incident 
which  paints  the  temper  of  the  time.  The  restless  love 
of  knowledge  which  was  the  one  redeeming  feature  in 
Duke  Humphrey's  character  drew  to  him  not  only  scholars 
but  a  horde  of  the  astrologers  and  claimants  of  magical 
powers  who  were  the  natural  product  of  an  age  in  which 


Eleanor 
Cobham. 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  561 

the  faith  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  dying  out  before  the  CHAP.  VI. 
double  attack  of  scepticism  and  heresy.  Amongst  these  TheWars 
was  a  priest  named  Eoger  Bolinbroke.  Bolinbroke  was 
seized  on  a  charge  of  compassing  the  King's  death  by 
sorcery  ;  and  the  sudden  night  of  Eleanor  Cobham  to  the  1A61' 
sanctuary  at  Westminster  was  soon  explained  by  a  like 
accusation.  Her  judges  found  that  she  had  made  a  waxen 
image  of  the  King  and  slowly  melted  it  at  a  fire,  a  process 
which  was  held  to  account  for  Henry's  growing  weakness 
both  of  body  and  mind.  The  Duchess  was  doomed  to 
penance  for  her  crime ;  she  was  led  bareheaded  and  bare- 
footed in  a  white  penance-sheet  through  the  streets  of 
London,  and  then  thrown  into  prison  for  life.  Humphrey 
never  rallied  from  the  blow.  But  his  retirement  from 
public  affairs  was  soon  followed  by  that  of  his  rival, 
Cardinal  Beaufort.  Age  forced  Beaufort  to  withdraw  to 
"Winchester  ;  and  the  Council  was  from  that  time  swayed 
mainly  by  the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  William  de  la  Pole,  a  grand- 
son of  the  minister  of  Eichard  the  Second. 

Few  houses  had  served  the  Crown  more  faithfully  than  The 
that  of  De  la  Pole.  His  father  fell  at  the  siege  of  Har-  Bei 
fleur ;  his  brother  had  been  slain  at  Agincourt ;  William 
himself  had  served  and  been  taken  prisoner  in  the  war 
with  France.  But  as  a  statesman  he  was  powerless  in  the 
hands  of  the  Beauforts,  and  from  this  moment  the  policy 
of  the  Beauforts  drew  England  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
chaos  of  civil  war.  John  Beaufort,  Duke  of  Somerset,  and 
his  brother,  Edmund,  Earl  of  Dorset,  were  now  the  repre- 
sentatives of  this  house.  They  were  grandsons  of  John  of 
Gaunt  by  his  mistress,  Catharine  Swynford.  In  later  days 
Catharine  became  John's  wife,  and  his  uncle's  influence  over 
Eichard  at  the  close  of  that  King's  reign  was  shown  in  a  royal 
ordinance  which  legitimated  those  of  his  children  by  her 
who  had  been  born  before  marriage.  The  ordinance  was  con- 
firmed by  an  Act  of  Parliament,  which  as  it  passed  the 
Houses  was  expressed  in  the  widest  and  most  general  terms  ; 
but  before  issuing  this  as  a  statute  Henry  the  Fourth  inserted 


562 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


1422- 
1461. 


CHAP.  VI.  provisions  which  left  the  Beauforts  illegitimate  in  blood 
TheWars  so  far  as  regarded  the  inheritance  of  the  crown.  Such 
Koses.  royal  alterations  of  statutes  however  had  been  illegal  since 
the  time  of  Edward  the  Third ;  and  the  Beauforts  never 
recognized  the  force  of  this  provision.  But  whether  they 
stood  in  the  line  of  succession  or  no,  the  favour  which  was 
shown  them  alike  by  Henry  the  Fifth  and  his  son  drew 
them  close  to  the  throne,  and  the  weakness  of  Henry  the 
Sixth  left  them  at  this  moment  the  mainstay  of  the  House 
of  Lancaster.  Edmund  Beaufort  had  taken  an  active 
part  in  the  French  wars,  and  had  distinguished  himself  by 
the  capture  of  Harfleur  and  the  relief  of  Calais.  But  ho 
was  hated  for  his  pride  and  avarice,  and  the  popular  hate 
grew  as  he  showed  his  jealousy  of  the  Duke  of  York. 
Loyal  indeed  as  Eichard  had  proved  himself  as  yet,  the 
pretensions  of  his  house  were  the  most  formidable  danger 
which  fronted  the  throne  ;  and  with  a  weak  and  imbecile 
King  we  can  hardly  wonder  that  the  Beauforts  deemed  it 
madness  to  leave  in  the  Duke's  hands  the  wide  po\ver  of  a 
Regent  in  France  and  the  command  of  the  armies  across 
the  sea.  In  1444  York  was  recalled,  and  his  post  was 
taken  by  Edmund  Beaufort  himself. 

But  the  claim  which  York  drew  from  the  house  of 
Mortimer  was  not  his  only  claim  to  the  crown  ;  as  the 
descendant  of  Edward  the  Third's  fifth  son  the  crown 
would  naturally  devolve  upon  him  on  the  extinction  of 
the  House  of  Lancaster,  and  of  the  direct  line  of  that 
house  Henry  the  Sixth  was  the  one  survivor.  It  was 
to  check  these  hopes  by  continuing  the  Lancastrian 
succession  that  Suffolk  in  1445  brought  about  the  mar- 
riage of  the  young  King  with  Margaret,  the  daughter 
of  Duke  Rene  of  Anjou.  But  the  marriage  had  another 
end.  The  English  ministers  were  anxious  for  the  close 
of  the  war;  and  in  the  kinship  between  Margaret  and 
King  Charles  of  France  they  saw  a  chance  of  bring- 
ing it  about.  A  truce  was  concluded  as  a  prelude  to  a 
future  peace,  and  the  marriage  treaty  paved  the  way  for 


Loss  of 
Nor- 
mandy. 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


56*3 


of  the 
Roses. 

14-22 
1461. 


it  by  ceding  not  only  Anjou,  of  which  England  possessed  CHAP.  VL 
nothing,  but  Maine,  the  bulwark  of  Normandy,  to  Duke 
Rene.  For  his  part  in  this  negotiation  Suffolk  was  raised 
to  the  rank  of  marquis ;  but  the  terms  of  the  treaty  and 
the  delays  which  still  averted  a  final  peace  gave  new 
strength  to  the  war-party  with  Gloucester  at  its  head,  and 
troubles  were  looked  for  in  the  Parliament  which  met  at 
the  opening  of  1447.  The  danger  was  roughly  met.  Glou- 
cester was  arrested  as  he  rode  to  Parliament  on  a  charge  of 

O 

secret  conspiracy ;  and  a  few  days  later  he  was  found  dead 
in  his  lodging.  Suspicions  of  murder  were  added  to  the 
hatred  against  Suffolk ;  and  his  voluntary  submission  to 
an  enquiry  by  the  Council  into  his  conduct  in  the  marriage 
treaty,  which  was  followed  by  his  acquittal  of  all  blame, 
did  little  to  counteract  this.  '\Vhat  was  yet  more  fatal  to 
Suffolk  was  the  renewal  of  the  war.  In  the  face  of  the 
agitation  against  it  the  English  ministers  had  never  dared 
to  execute  the  provisions  of  the  marriage-treaty ;  and  in 
1448  Charles  the  Seventh  sent  an  army  to  enforce  the 
cession  of  Le  Mans.  Its  surrender  averted  the  struggle 
for  a  moment.  But  in  the  spring  of  1449  a  body  of  Eng- 
lish soldiers  from  Normandy,  mutinous  at  their  want  of 
pay,  crossed  the  border  and  sacked  the  rich  town  of 
Fougeres  in  Brittany.  Edmund  Beaufort,  who  had  now 
succeeded  to  the  dukedom  of  Somerset,  protested  his  inno- 
cence of  this  breach  of  truce,  but  he  either  could  not  or 
would  not  make  restitution,  and  the  war  was  renewed. 
From  this  moment  it  was  a  mere  series  of  French  suc- 
cesses. In  two  months  half  Normandy  was  in  the  hands 
of  Dunois ;  Eouen  rose  against  her  feeble  garrison  and 
threw  open  her  gates  to  Charles  ;  and  the  defeat  at  Four- 
niigny  of  an  English  force  which  was  sent  to  Somerset's 
aid  was  a  signal  for  revolt  throughout  the  rest  of  the 
provinces.  The  surrender  of  Cherbourg  in  August,  1450, 
left  Henry  not  a  foot  of  Xorman  ground. 

The  loss  of  Normandy  was  generally  laid  to  the  charge    National 
of  Somerset.     He  was  charged  with  a  miserly  hoarding  of  discontent. 


564  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  VI.  supplies  as  well  as  planning  in  conjunction  with  Suffolk 
The^Wars  ^ne  f^al  sack  of  Fougeres.  His  incapacity  as  a  general 
Boses6  added  to  the  resentment  at  his  recall  of  the  Duke  of  York, 
1422-  a  recall  which  had  been  marked  as  a  disgrace  by  the 
1461.  despatch  of  Richard  into  an  honourable  banishment  as 
lieutenant  of  Ireland.  But  it  was  this  very  recall 
which  proved  most  helpful  to  York.  Had  he  remained  in 
France  he  could  hardly  have  averted  the  loss  of  Kormandy, 
though  he  might  have  delayed  it.  As  it  was  the  shame  of 
its  loss  fell  upon  Somerset,  while  the  general  hatred  of  the 
Beauforts  and  the  growing  contempt  of  the  King  whom 
they  ruled  expressed  itself  in  a  sudden  rush  of  popular 
favour  towards  the  man  whom  his  disgrace  had  marked 
out  as  the  object  of  their  ill-will.  From  this  moment  the 
hopes  of  a  better  and  a  stronger  government  centred  them- 
selves in  the  Duke  of  York.  The  news  of  the  French  suc- 
cesses was  at  once  followed  by  an  outbreak  of  national 
wrath.  Political  ballads  denounced  Suffolk  as  the  ape 
with  his  clog  that  had  tied  Talbot,  the  good  "  dog  "  who 
was  longing  to  grip  the  Frenchmen.  When  the  Bishop  of 
Chichester,  who  had  been  sent  to  pay  the  sailors  at  Ports- 
mouth, strove  to  put  off  the  men  with  less  than  their  due, 
they  fell  on  him  and  slew  him.  Suffolk  was  impeached, 
and  only  saved  from  condemnation  by  submitting  himself 
to  the  King's  mercy.  He  was  sent  into  exile,  but  as  he 
crossed  the  sea  he  was  intercepted  by  a  ship  of  Kentishmen, 
beheaded,  and  his  body  thrown  on  the  sands  at  Dover. 
Revolt  of  Kent  was  the  centre  of  the  national  resentment.  It 
;" '  was  the  great  manufacturing  district  of  the  day,  seeth- 
ing with  a  busy  population,  and  especially  concerned  with 
the  French  contest  through  the  piracy  of  the  Cinque  Ports. 
Every  house  along  its  coast  showed  some  spoil  from  the  wars. 
Here  more  than  anywhere  the  loss  of  the  great  province 
whose  cliffs  could  be  seen  from  its  shores  was  felt  as  a  crown- 
ing disgrace,  and  as  we  shall  see  from  the  after  complaints 
of  its  insurgents  political  wrongs  added  their  fire  to  the 
national  shame.  Justice  was  ill  administered  ;  taxation  was 


rv.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  565 

unequal  and  extortionate.  Redress  for  such  evils  would  now  CHAP.  VI. 
naturally  have  been  sought  from  Parliament ;  but  the  TheWars 
weakness  of  the  Crown  gave  the  great  nobles  power  to  rob  Roses6 
the  freeholders  of  their  franchise  and  return  the  knights  IASZ- 
of  the  shire.  Nor  could  redress  be  looked  for  from  the  1*61' 
Court.  The  murder  of  Suffolk  was  the  act  of  Kentish- 
men,  and  Suffolk's  friends  still  held  control  over  the  royal 
councils.  The  one  hope  of  reform  lay  in  arms ;  and  in 
the  summer  of  1450,  while  the  last  of  the  Norman 
fortresses  were  throwing  open  their  gates,  the  discontent 
broke  into  open  revolt.  The  rising  spread  from  Kent  over 
Surrey  and  Sussex.  Everywhere  it  was  general  and  or- 
ganized— a  military  levy  of  the  yeomen  of  the  three  shires. 
The  parishes  sent  their  due  contingent  of  armed  men ;  we 
know  that  in  many  hundreds  the  constables  formally  sum- 
moned their  legal  force  to  war.  The  insurgents  were 
joined  by  more  than  a  hundred  esquires  and  gentlemen  ; 
and  two  great  landholders  of  Sussex,  the  Abbot  of  Battle 
and  the  Prior  of  Lewes,  openly  favoured  their  cause.  John 
Cade,  a  soldier  of  some  experience  in  the  French  wars, 
took  at  this  crisis  the  significant  name  of  Mortimer  and 
placed  himself  at  their  head.  The  army,  now  twenty  thou- 
sand men  strong,  marched  in  the  beginning  of  June  on 
Blackheath.  On  the  advance  of  the  King  with  an  equal 
force  however  they  determined  to  lay  their  complaint  before 
the  royal  Council  and  withdraw  to  their  homes.  The 
"  Complaint  of  the  Commons  of  Kent,"  is  of  high  value  in 
the  light  which  it  throws  on  the  condition  of  the  people. 
Not  one  of  the  demands  touches  on  religious  reform.  The 
question  of  villeinage  and  serfage  finds  no  place  in  it.  In 
the  seventy  years  which  had  intervened  since  the  last 
peasant  rising,  villeinage  had  died  naturally  away  before  the 
progress  of  social  change.  The  Statutes  of  Apparel,  which 
from  this  time  encumber  the  Statute-book,  show  in  their 
anxiety  to  curtail  the  dress  of  the  labourer  and  the  faimer 
the  progress  of  these  classes  in  comfort  and  wealth ;  and 
from  the  language  of  the  statutes  themselves  it  is  plain 

VOL.!.— 3T 


566  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  VI.  that   as   wages   rose   both  farmer  and  labourer  went  on 
TheWars   clothing    themselves   better  in   spite   of   sumptuary  pro- 
poses      visions.     With  the  exception  of  a  demand  for  the  repeal 
14^22-     °f    the   Statute     of  Labourers,   the    programme    of    the 
IASI,      Commons    was   not    social   but    political.      The    "Com- 
plaint "  calls  for  administrative  and  economical  reforms ; 
it  denounces  the  exclusion  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  other 
nobles  from  the  royal  councils  ;  it  calls  for  a  change  of 
ministry,  a  more  careful  expenditure  of  the  royal  revenue, 
and  for  the  restoration  of  freedom  of  election  which  had 
been  broken  in  upon  by  the  interference  both  of  the  Crown 
and  the  great  landowners. 

Suppres-  The  Council  refused  to  receive  the  "Complaint,"  and 
8i™°{ltihe  a  body  of  troops  under  Sir  Humphrey  Stafford  fell  on  the 
Kentishmen  as  they  reached  Sevenoaks.  This  attack  how- 
ever was  roughly  beaten  off,  and  Cade's  host  turned  back 
to  encounter  the  royal  army.  But  the  royal  army  itself 
was  already  calling  for  justice  on  the  traitors  who  misled 
the  King ;  and  at  the  approach  of  the  Kentishmen  it  broke 
up  in  disorder.  Its  dispersion  was  followed  by  Henry's 
flight  to  Kenilworth  and  the  entry  of  the  Kentishmen 
into  London,  where  the  execution  of  Lord  Say,  the  most 
unpopular  of  the  royal  ministers,  broke  the  obstinacy  of 
his  colleagues.  For  three  days  the  peasants  entered  the 
city  freely,  retiring  at  nightfall  to  their  camp  across  the 
river :  but  on  the  fifth  of  July  the  men  of  London,  goaded 
by  the  outrages  of  the  rabble  whom  their  presence  roused 
to  plunder,  closed  the  bridge  against  them,  and  beat  back 
an  attack  with  great  slaughter.  The  Kentishmen  still 
however  lay  unbroken  in  Southwark,  while  Bishop  "Wayn- 
flete  conferred  with  Cade  on  beha]f  of  the  Council.  Their 
"  Complaint "  was  received,  pardons  were  granted  to  all 
who  had  joined  in  the  rising,  and  the  insurgents  dis- 
persed quietly  to  their  homes.  Cade  had  striven  in  vain 
to  retain  them  in  arms ;  on  their  dispersion  he  formed 
a  new  force  by  throwing  open  the  gaols,  and  carried  off 
the  booty  he  had  won  to  Rochester.  Here  however  his 


IV.]  THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461.  567 

men  quarrelled  over  the  plunder  ;  his  force  brokemprand  CHAP.  VI. 
Cade  himself  was  slain  by  Iden,  the  Sheriff  of  Kent,  as  xhfTwarg 
he  fled  into  Sussex.  |f0g£ 

Kent  remained  restless  through  the  year,  and  a  rising  in      1^22- 
"VYilt shire  showed  the  growing  and  wide-spread  trouble  of     1A61' 
the  time.     The  "Complaint"  indeed  had  only  been  received 
to  be  laid  aside.     No  attempt  was  made  to  redress  the   York  and 
grievances  which  it  stated  or  to  reform  the  government.      f^^ 
On  the  contrary  the  main  object  of  popular  hate,  the  Duke 
of  Somerset,  was  at  once  recalled  from  Normandy  to  take 
his  place  at  the  head  of  the  royal  Council.    York  on  the 
other  hand,  whose  recall  had  been  pressed  in  the  "  Com- 
plaint,"  was   looked    upon  as  an  open  foe.      "Strange 
language  "  indeed  had  long  before  the  Kentish  rising  been 
uttered  about  the  Duke.     Men  had  threatened  that  he 
"should  be  fetched  with  many  thousands,"  and  the  expecta- 
tion of  his  coming  to  reform  the  government  became  so 
general  that  orders  were  given  to  close  the  western  ports 
against  his  landing.     If  we  believe  the  Duke  himself,  he 
was  forced  to  move  at  last  by  efforts  to  indict  him  as  a 
traitor  in  Ireland  itself.     Crossing  at  Michaelmas  to  "Wales 
in   spite   of  the   efforts  to  arrest  him,  he  gathered  four 
thousand  men  on  his  estates  and  marched  upon  London. 
No  serious  effort  was  made  to  prevent  his  approach  to  the 
King;  and   Henry   found  himself  helpless  to   resist  his 
demand  of  a  Parliament   and   of  the   admission   of  new 
councillors  to  the  royal  council-board.     Parliament  met  in 
November,  and  a  bitter  strife  between  York  and  Somerset 
ended  in  the  arrest  of  the  latter.     A  demand  which  at 
once  followed  shows  the  importance  of  his  fall.     Henry 
the  Sixth  still  remained  childless ;  and  Young,  a  member 
for  Bristol,  proposed  in  the  Commons  that  the  Duke  of 
York  should  be  declared  heir  to  the  throne.     But  the  blow 
was  averted  by  repeated  prorogations,  and  Henry's  sym- 
pathies were  shown  by  the  committal  of  Young  to  the  Tower, 
by  the  release  of  Somerset,  and  by  his  promotion  to  the 
captaincy   of    Calais,  the  most   important   military    post 


568  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 

CHAP.  VI.   under  the  Crown.      The  Commons  indeed  still  remained 

TheTWars   resolute.     When  they  again  met  in  the  summer  of  1451 

Soses6      they  called  for  the  removal  of  Somerset  and  his  creatures 

1422-      from  the  King's  presence.    But  Henry  evaded  the  demand ; 

115^'      and  the  dissolution  of  the  Houses   announced  the  royal 

resolve  to  govern  in  defiance  of  the  national  will. 
Failureof  The  contest  between  the  Houses  and  the  Crown  had  cost 
England  her  last  possessions  across  the  Channel.  As  York 
marched  upon  London  Charles  closed  on  the  fragment  of 
the  duchy  of  Guienne  which  still  remained  to  the  descend- 
ants of  Eleanor.  In  a  few  months  all  was  won.  Bourg 
and  Blaye  surrendered  in  the  spring  of  1451,  Bordeaux 
in  the  summer ;  two  months  later  the  loss  of  Bayonne 
ended  the  war  in  the  south.  Of  all  the  English  posses- 
sions in  France  only  Calais  remained ;  and  in  1452  Calais 
was  threatened  with  attack.  The  news  of  this  crowning 
danger  again  called  York  to  the  front.  On  the  declaration 
of  Henry's  will  to  resist  all  change  in  the  government 
the  Duke  had  retired  to  his  castle  of  Ludlow,  arresting  the 
whispers  of  his  enemies  with  a  solemn  protest  that  he  was 
true  liegeman  to  the  King.  But  after  events  show  that  he 
was  planning  a  more  decisive  course  of  action  than  that 
which  had  broken  down  with  the  dissolution  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  news  of  the  approaching  siege  gave  ground 
for  taking  such  a  course  at  once.  Somerset  had  been 
appointed  Captain  of  Calais,  and  as  his  incapacity  had 
lost  England  Normandy,  it  would  cost  her — so  England 
believed — her  last  fortress  in  France.  It  was  said  indeed 
that  the  Duke  was  negotiating  with  Burgundy  for  its  sur- 
render. In  the  spring  of  1452  therefore  York  again 
inarched  on  London,  but  this  time  with  a  large  body  of  ord- 
nance and  an  army  which  the  arrival  of  reinforcements 
under  Lord  Cobham  and  the  Earl  of  Devonshire  raised  to 
over  twenty  thousand  men.  Eluding  the  host  which 
gathered  round  the  King  and  Somerset  he  passed  by  the 
capital,  whose  gates  had  been  closed  by  Henry's  orders,  and 
entering  Kent  took  post  at  Dartford.  His  army  was  soon 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


569 


1422- 
1461. 


fronted  by  the  superior  force  of  the  King,  but  the  inter- 
position of  the  more  moderate  lords  of  the  Council  averted 
open  conflict.  Henry  promised  that  Somerset  should  be 
put  on  his  trial  on  the  charges  advanced  by  the  Duke,  and 
York  on  this  pledge  disbanded  his  men.  But  the  pledge 
was  at  once  broken.  Somerset  remained  in  power.  York 
found  himself  practically  a  prisoner,  and  only  won  his  release 
by  an  oath  to  refrain  from  further  "  routs  "  or  assemblies. 

Two  such  decisive  failures  seemed  for  the  time  to  have 
utterly  broken  Eichard's  power.  Weakened  as  the  crown 
had  been  by  losses  abroad,  it  was  clearly  strong  enough 
as  yet  to  hold  its  own  against  the  chief  of  the  baronage. 
A  general  amnesty  indeed  sheltered  York's  adherents 
and  enabled  the  Duke  himself  to  retire  safely  to  Ludlow, 
but  for  more  than  a  year  his  rival  Somerset  wielded 
without  opposition  the  power  Eichard  had  striven  to 
wrest  from  him.  A  favourable  turn  in  the  progress  of  the 
war  gave  fresh  vigour  to  the  Government.  The  French 
forces  were  abruptly  called  from  their  march  against  Calais 
to  the  recovery  of  the  south.  The  towns  of  Guienne  had 
opened  their  gates  to  Charles  on  his  pledge  to  respect  their 
franchises,  but  the  need  of  the  French  treasury  was  too 
great  to  respect  the  royal  word,  and  heavy  taxation  turned 
the  hopes  of  Gascony  to  its  old  masters.  On  the  landing 
of  an  English  force  under  Talbot,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  a 
general  revolt  restored  to  the  English  their  possessions 
on  the  Garonne.  Somerset  used  this  break  of  better  for- 
tune to  obtain  heavy  subsidies  from  Parliament  in  1453  ; 
but  ere  the  twenty  thousand  men  whose  levy  was  voted 
could  cross  the  Channel  a  terrible  blow  had  again  ruined 
the  English  cause.  In  a  march  to  relieve  Castillon  on  the 
Dordogne  Shrewsbury  suddenly  found  himself  face  to  face 
with  the  whole  French  army.  His  men  were  mown  down 
by  its  guns,  and  the  Earl  himself  left  dead  on  the  field. 
His  fall  was  the  signal  for  a  general  submission.  Town 


after  town  a^ain  threw  open  its   gates  to   Charles,   and 


Bordeaux  capitulated  in  October. 


570 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  VI. 

The  Wars 
of  the 
Roses. 

1422 
1461. 


Madness 
of  the 
King. 


York's 
revolt. 


The  final  loss  of  Gascony  fell  upon  England  at  a  moment 
when  two  events  at  home  changed  the  whole  face  of 
affairs.  After  eight  years  of  childlessness  the  King 
became  in  October  the  father  of  a  son.  AVith  the  birth 
of  this  boy  the  rivalry  of  York  and  the  Beauforts  for  the 
right  of  succession  ceased  to  be  the  mainspring  of  English 
politics ;  and  the  crown  seemed  again  to  rise  out  of  the 
turmoil  of  warring  factions.  But  with  the  birth  of  the 
son  came  the  madness  of  the  father.  Henry  the  Sixth 
sank  into  a  state  of  idiotcy  which  made  his  rule  impos- 
sible, and  his  ministers  were  forced  to  call  a  great  Council 
of  peers  to  devise  means  for  the  government  of  the  realm. 
York  took  his  seat  at  this  council,  and  the  mood  of  the 
nobles  was  seen  in  the  charges  of  misgovernment  which 
were  at  once  made  against  Somerset,  and  in  his  committal 
to  the  Tower.  But  Somerset  was  no  longer  at  the  head 
of  the  royal  party.  With  the  birth  of  her  son  the  Queen, 
Margaret  of  Anjou,  came  to  the  front.  Her  restless 
despotic  temper  was  quickened  to  action  by  the  dangers 
which  she  saw  threatening  her  boy's  heritage  of  the 
crown ;  and  the  demand  to  be  invested  with  the  full  royal 
power  which  she  made  after  a  vain  effort  to  rouse  her 
husband  from  his  lethargy  aimed  directly  at  the  exclusion 
of  the  Duke  of  York.  The  demand  however  was  roughly 
set  aside  ;  the  Lords  gave  permission  to  York  to  summon 
a  Parliament  as  the  King's  lieutenant;  and  on  the  assembly 
of  the  Houses  in  the  spring  of  1454,  as  the  mental  aliena- 
tion of  the  King  continued,  the  Lords  chose  Eichard  Pro- 
tector of  the  Realm.  With  Somerset  in  prison  little 
opposition  could  be  made  to  the  Protectorate,  and  that 
little  was  soon  put  down.  But  the  nation  had  hardly 
time  to  feel  the  guidance  of  Eichard's  steady  hand  when 
it  was  removed.  At  the  opening  of  1455  the  King 
recovered  his  senses,  and  York's  Protectorate  came  at  once 
to  an  end. 

Henry  had  no  sooner  grasped  power  again  than  he  fell 
back  on  his  old  policy.  The  Queen  became  his  chief  adviser. 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


571 


The  Wars 
of  the 

Roses. 

1422- 
1461. 


The  Duke  of  Somerset  was  released  from  the  Tower  and  CHAP.  VI. 
owned  by  Henry  in  formal  court  as  his  true  and  faithful 
liegeman.  York  on  the  other  hand  was  deprived  of  the 
government  of  Calais,  and  summoned  with  his  friends  to  a 
council  at  Leicester,  whose  object  was  to  provide  for  the 
surety  of  the  King's  person.  Prominent  among  these  friends 
were  two  Earls  of  the  house  of  Neville.  We  have  seen 
how  great  a  part  the  Nevilles  played  after  the  accession  of 
the  house  of  Lancaster  ;  it  was  mainly  to  their  efforts  that 
Henry  the  Fourth  owed  the  overthrow  of  the  Percies,  their 
rivals  in  the  mastery  of  the  north ;  and  from  that  moment 
their  wealth  and  power  had  been  steadily  growing.  Pdchard 
Neville,  Earl  of  Salisbury,  was  one  of  the  mightiest  barons 
of  the  realm;  but  his  power  was  all  but  equalled  by 
that  of  his  son,  a  second  Richard,  who  had  won  the 
Earldom  of  Warwick  by  his  marriage  with  the  heiress  of 
the  Beauchamps.  The  marriage  of  York  to  Salisbury's 
sister,  Cecily  Neville,  had  bound  both  the  earls  to  his 
cause,  and  under  his  Protectorate  Salisbury  had  been 
created  Chancellor.  But  he  was  stripped  of  this  office  on 
the  Duke's  fall ;  and  their  summons  to  the  council  of 
Leicester  was  held  by  the  Nevilles  to  threaten  ruin  to 
themselves  as  to  York.  The  three  nobles  at  once  took 
arms  to  secure,  as  they  alleged,  safe  access  to  the  King's 
person.  Henry  at  the  news  of  their  approach  mustered 
two  thousand  men,  and  with  Somerset,  the  Earl  of  North- 
umberland, and  other  nobles  in  his  train,  advanced  to 
St.  Albans. 

On  the  23rd  of  May  York  and  the  two  Earls  encamped 
without  the  town,  and  called  on  Henry  "  to  deliver  such 
as  we  will  accuse,  and  they  to  have  like  as  they  have 
deserved  and  done."  The  King's  reply  was  as  bold  as  the 
demand.  "  Ptather  than  they  shall  have  any  lord  here  with 
me  at  this  time,"  he  replied,  "  I  shall  this  day  for  their  sake 
and  in  this  quarrel  myself  live  and  die."  A  summons  to  dis- 
perse as  traitors  left  York  and  his  fellow  nobles  no  hope  but 
in  an  attack.  At  eventide  three  assaults  were  made  on  the 


The 
civil  war. 


572 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


CHAP.  VI.   town.     Warwick  was  the  first  to  break  in,  and  the  sound 

TheWara    of  his  trumpets  in  the  streets  turned  the  fight  into  a  rout. 

Roses.      Death  had  answered  the  prayer  which  Henry  rejected,  for 

1422-     the  Duke  of  Somerset  with  Lord  Clifford  and  the  Earl  of 

x^^'      Northumberland  were  among  the  fallen.    The  King  himself 

fell  into  the  victors'  hands.     The  three  lords  kneeling  be- 

O 

fore  him  prayed  him  to  take  them  for  his  true  liegemen, 
and  then  rode  by  his  side  in  triumph  into  London,  where 
a  parliament  was  at  once  summoned  which  confirmed  the 
acts  of  the  Duke ;  and  on  a  return  of  the  King's  malady 
again  nominated  York  as  Protector.  But  in  the  spring  of 
1456  Henry's  recovery  again  ended  the  Duke's  rule  ;  and 
for  two  years  the  warring  parties  sullenly  watched  one 
another.  A  temporary  reconciliation  between  them  was 
brought  about  by  the  misery  of  the  realm,  but  an  attempt 
of  the  Queen  to  arrest  the  Nevilles  in  1458  caused  a  fresh 
outbreak  of  war.  Salisbury  defeated  Lord  Audley  in  a 
fight  at  Bloreheath  in  Staffordshire,  and  York  with  the  two 
Earls  raised  his  standard  at  Ludlow.  But  the  crown  was 
still  stronger  than  any  force  of  the  baronage.  The  King 
marched  rapidly  on  the  insurgents,  and  a  decisive  battle 
was  only  averted  by  the  desertion  of  a  part  of  the  Yorkist 
army  and  the  disbanding  of  the  rest.  The  Duke  him- 
self fled  to  Ireland,  the  Earls  to  Calais,  while  the  Queen, 
summoning  a  Parliament  at  Coventry  in  November  pressed 
on  their  attainder.  But  the  check,  whatever  its  cause,  had 
been  merely  a  temporary  one.  York  and  Warwick  planned 
a  fresh  attempt  from  their  secure  retreats  in  Ireland  and 
Calais  ;  and  in  the  midsummer  of  1460  the  Earls  of 
Salisbury  and  Warwick,  with-Eichard's  son  Edward,  the 
young  Earl  of  March,  again  landed  in  Kent.  Backed  by 
a  general  rising  of  the  county  they  entered  London  amidst 
the  acclamations  of  its  citizens.  The  royal  army  was 
defeated  in  a  hard- fought  action  at  Northampton  in  July. 
Margaret  fled  to  Scotland,  and  Henry  was  left  a  prisoner 
in  the  hands  of  the  Duke  of  York. 

The  position  of  York  as  heir  presumptive  to  the  crown 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


573 


Richard 


by  his  descent  from  Edmund  of  Langley  had  ceased  with  CHAP.  VI. 
the  birth  of  a  son  to  Henry  the  Sixth  :  but  the  victory  of   TheWars 
Northampton  no  sooner  raised  him  to  the  supreme  control      Roses! 
of  affairs  than  he  ventured  to  assert  the  far  more  dangerous     1423. 
claims  which  he  had  secretly  cherished  as  the  representative      J^V 
of  Lionel  of  Clarence,  and  to  their  consciousness  of  which 
was  owing  the  hostility  of  Henry  and  his  Queen.      Such  a 
claim  was  in  direct  opposition  to  that  power  of  the  two 
Houses  whose  growth  had  been  the  work  of  the  past  hun- 
dred years.     There  was  no  constitutional  ground  for  any 
limitation  of  the  right  of  Parliament  to  set  aside  an  elder 
branch  in  favour  of  a  younger,  and  in  the  Parliamentary  Act 
which  placed  the  House  of  Lancaster  on  the  throne  the  claim 
of  the  House  of  Mortimer  had  been  deliberately  set  aside. 
Possession,  too,  told  against  the  Yorkist  pretensions.     To 
modern  minds  the   best  reply  to  Pdchard's  claim  lay  in 
the  words  used  at  a  later  time  by  Henry  himself.     "  My 
father  was  King  ;  his  father  also  was  King  ;  I  myself  have 
worn  the  crown  forty  years  from  my  cradle  :  you  have  all 
sworn  fealty  to  me  as  your  sovereign,  and  your  fathers 
have  done  the  like  to  mine.     How  then  can  my  right  be 
disputed  ?  "     Long  and  undisturbed  possession  as  well  as 
a  distinctly  legal  title  by  free  vote  of  Parliament  was  in 
favour  of  the  House  of  Lancaster.     But  the  persecution 
of  the  Lollards,  the  interference  with  elections,  the  odium 
of  the  war,    the  shame  of  the  long  misgovernment,  told 
fatally  against  the  weak  and  imbecile  King  whose  reign 
had  been  a  long  battle  of  contending  factious.     That  the 
misrule  had  been  serious  was  shown  by  the  attitude  of  the 
commercial  class.     It  was  the  rising  of  Kent,  the  great 
manufacturing  district  of  the  realm,  which  brought  about 
the  victory  of    Northampton.     Throughout   the   struggle 
which  followed  London  and   the  great   merchant  towns 
were  steady  for  the  House  of  York.     Zeal  for  the  Lancas- 
trian cause  was  found  only  in  Wales,  in  northern  England, 
and  in  the  south-western  shires.     It  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  the  shrewd  traders  of  Cheapside  were  moved  by  ail 


574 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.        [BOOK 


The  Wars 
of  the 
Roses, 

1422 
1461. 


CHAP.  VI.  abstract  question  of  hereditary  right,  or  that  the  wild 
Welshmen  believed  themselves  to  be  supporting  the  right  of 
Parliament  to  regulate  the  succession.  But  it  marks  the 
power  which  Parliament  had  gained  that,  directly  as  his 
claims  ran  in  the  teeth  of  a  succession  established  by  it,  the 
Duke  of  York  felt  himself  compelled  to  convene  the  two 
Houses  in  October  and  to  lay  his  claim  before  the  Lords 
as  a  petition  of  right.  Neither  oaths  nor  the  numerous 
Acts  which  had  settled  and  confirmed  the  right  to  the 
crown  in  the  House  of  Lancaster  could  destroy,  he  pleaded, 
his  hereditary  claim.  The  bulk  of  the  Lords  refrained 
from  attendance,  and  those  who  were  present  received  the 
petition  with  hardly  concealed  reluctance.  They  solved 
the  question,  as  they  hoped,  by  a  compromise.  They 
refused  to  dethrone  the  King,  but  they  had  sworn  no  fealty 
to  his  child,  and  at  Henry's  death  they  agreed  to  receive 
the  Duke  as  successor  to  the  crown. 

But  the  open  display  of  York's  pretensions  at  once 
united  the  partizans  of  the  royal  House  in  a  vigorous 
resistance ;  and  the  deadly  struggle  which  received  the 
name  of  the  Wars  of  the  Eoses  from  the  white  rose 
which  formed  the  badge  of  the  House  of  York  and  the 
red  rose  which  was  the  cognizance  of  the  House  of  Lan- 
caster began  in  a  gathering  of  the  North  round  Lord 
Clifford  and  of  the  West  round  Henry,  Duke  of  Somerset, 
the  son  of  the  Duke  who  had  fallen  at  St.  Albans.  York, 
who  hurried  in  December  to  meet  the  first  with  a  far 
inferior  force,  was  defeated  and  slain  at  Wakefield.  The 
passion  of  civil  war  broke  fiercely  out  on  the  field.  The 
Earl  of  Salisbury  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  was 
hurried  to  the  block.  The  head  of  Duke  Richard,  crowned 
in  mockery  with  a  diadem  of  paper,  is  said  to  have 
been  impaled  on  the  walls  of  York.  His  second  son, 
Lord  Rutland,  fell  crying  for  mercy  on  his  knees 
before  Clifford.  But  Clifford's  father  had  been  the  first  to 
fall  in  the  battle  of  St.  Alban's  which  opened  the  struggle. 
"  As  your  father  killed  mine,"  cried  the  savage  Baron, 


War  of 
the  Roses. 


Greenes  Eisttrr\ 


THE  WARS 

of  the 

ROSES 


Harper  ScBrothers  tf 


IV.] 


THE  PARLIAMENT.     1307—1461. 


575 


while  he  plunged  his  dagger  in  the  young  noble's  breast,  "  I  CHAP.  VI. 
will  kill  you  ! "     The  brutal  deed  was  soon  to  be  avenged.    iheWars 
Eichard's  eldest  son,  Edward,  the  Earl  of  March,  was  busy      Jioses5 
gathering  a  force  on  the  Welsh  border  in  support  of  his      1422- 
father  at  the  moment  when  the  Duke  was  defeated  and  slain.      1*JL1> 
Young  as  he  was  Edward  showed  in  this  hour  of  apparent 
ruin  the  quickness  and  vigour  of  his  temper,  and  routing 
on  his  march  a  body  of  Lancastrians  at  Mortimer's  Cross 
struck  boldly  upon  London.     It  was  on  London  that  the 
Lancastrian  army  had  moved  after  its  victory  at  Wakefield. 
A  desperate  struggle  took  place  at  St.  Albans  where  a  force 
of  Kentish  men  with  the  Earl  of  Warwick  strove  to  bar  its 
march  on  the  capital,  but  Warwick's  force  broke   under 
cover  of  night  and  an  immediate  advance  of  the  conquerors 
might    have    decided   the    contest.      Margaret   however 
paused  to  sully  her  victory  by  a  series  of  bloody  execu- 
tions, and  the  rough  northerners  who  formed  the  bulk  of 
her  army  scattered  to  pillage    while   Edward,   hurrying 
from  the  west,  appeared  before  the  capital     The  citizens 
rallied  at  his  call,  and  cries  of  "  Long  live  King  Edward  " 
rang  round  the  handsome  young  leader  as  he  rode  through 
the  streets.     A  council  of  Yorkist  lords,  hastily  summoned, 
resolved  that  the  compromise  agreed  on  in  Parliament  was 
at  an  end  and  that  Henry  of  Lancaster  had  forfeited  the 
throne.     The    final    issue    however  now   lay    not    with 
Parliament,    but     -with    the     sword.      Disappointed     of 
London,  the  Lancastrian   army  fell  rapidly  back  on  the 
North,  and   Edward  hurried  as  rapidly  in  pursuit.    On 
the   29th   of  March,  1461,  the  two   armies  encountered 
one   another  at  Towton  Field,  near  Tadcaster.      In  the 
numbers  engaged,  as  well  as  in  the  terrible  obstinacy  of 
the   struggle,  no  such  battle  had  been  seen  in  England 
since   the    fight  of   Senlac.      The    two    armies  together 
numbered  nearly  120,000  men.    The  day  had  just  broken 
when  the  Yorkists  advanced  through  a   thick   snowfall, 
and  for  six  hours  the  battle  raged  with  desperate  bravery 
on  either  side.     At  one  critical  moment  Warwick  saw  his 


576 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.   [BOOK  I 


CHAP.  VI. 

The  Wars 
of  the 

Hoses. 

1422 
1461. 


men  falter,  and  stabbing  his  horse  before  them,  swore  on 
the  cross  of  his  sword  to  win  or  die  on  the  field.  The 
battle  was  turned  at  last  by  the  arrival  of  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  with  a  fresh  force  from  the  Eastern  Counties,  and 
at  noon  the  Lancastrians  gave  way.  A  river  in  their  rear 
turned  the  retreat  into  a  rout,  and  the  flight  and  carnage, 
for  no  quarter  was  given  on  either  side,  went  on  through 
the  night  and  the  morrow.  Edward's  herald  counted  more 
than  20,000  Lancastrian  corpses  on  the  field.  The  losses 
of  the  conquerors  were  hardly  less  heavy  than  those  of 
the  conquered.  But  their  triumph  was  complete.  The 
Earl  of  Northumberland  was  slain ;  the  Earls  of  Devon- 
shire and  Wiltshire  were  taken  and  beheaded ;  the  Duke 
of  Somerset  fled  into  exile.  Henry  himself  with  his 
Queen  was  forced  to  fly  over  the  border  and  to  find  a 
refuge  in  Scotland.  The  cause  of  the  House  of  Lancaster 
was  lost ;  and  with  the  victory  of  Towton  the  crown  of 
England  passed  to  Edward  of  York. 


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